Besson Back with Sleazy (if Entertaining) Angel-A

Andre (Jamel Debbouze) is at the end of his line. Owing money to almost every hoodlum in Paris, he’s got no one to turn to for help and nowhere left to turn for protection. There’s only one thing left to do, jumping off a bridge into the waters of the Seine far more appealing to the down on his luck buffoon then feeling the hot lead of a bullet.

But a mysterious six-foot blonde with the looks and body of a supermodel beats him to the dive. Without thinking Andre dives into the frigid Parisian waters to save the girl, pulling her to safety of the shore with every ounce of strength hiding deep within his somewhat minuscule frame.

Wanting to help, the woman, calling herself Angela (Rie Rasmussen), decides to repay her savior’s good deed by helping him erase his debts. But this ethereal female isn’t what she appears to be, imparting worldly, some might even say Godly, life lessons to the motor-mouth liar and reprobate as if she were set from above to help him change his life’s course for the better.

Acclaimed writer/director Luc Besson (La Femme Nikita, The Fifth Element) returns to live action filmmaking with Angel-A  for the first time since 1999’s misfire The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc with decidedly mixed results. Elements of this film are just brilliant. From Thierry Arbogast’s (The Horseman on the Roof) gloriously beautiful black and white photography, to deliciously sumptuous performances by the leads, this comedic melodrama is never boring. In fact, it’s borderline impossible to take your eyes off of it, and even when it gets histrionically silly (and calling it so is a major understatement) I still found myself glued to my seat wondering what the heck was going to happen next.

On the flipside, so much of the plot is so brazenly haphazard and so absurdly silly I almost couldn’t believe a filmmaker would have the actual audacity to use any of it. It’s like elements were written and directed by an over-anxious sexually-frustrated 15-year-old boy. The sleaze and tease factor is stratospherically high, Besson reveling in every depraved pothole and mud pit his script almost continuously puts up for ridicule.

Still, I’m willing to give the multitalented filmmaker a break and give his latest concoction an ever so slight recommendation. Not because I loved the look of it (I did) or got swept up by just how grandly and gorgeously Besson makes his love letter to Paris appear (guilty on that count, too), but because somehow, and against my better judgment, I came to adore both of the central characters completely. Both Debbouze and Rasmussen are wonderful, the pair having a mismatched chemistry impossible to ignore. They make both Andre and Angela complete originals, watching them tromp through nightclub and hotel with brashly flippant abandon enough of hoot to keep me watching with rapt attention.

Don’t get me wrong. This movie is an odd duck, the director taking it to a finale that’s so weirdly anachronistic and hard to swallow I didn’t know whether I wanted to slap him or give the guy a hug for producing something so psychotically (and illogically) original. Needless to say, all of this means that Angel-A isn’t a gift from Heaven. Thankfully, having the risk-taking Besson back behind the camera certainly is.

Film Rating:  êê1/2  (out of 4)