For a time in the 1980s, Mickey Rourke was arguably Hollywood’s greatest actor, and his finest hour was the 1987 neo-noir horror Angel Heart.
Adrian Lyne, who directed him in the controversial 9½ Weeks, tells the , “If he had died when he was making Angel Heart, he’d have been talked about like James Dean. Dead actors can’t let you down.”
Unfortunately, Rourke was famous for letting people down, including himself, due to bad behaviour on and off the set. There was also an ill-fated pro boxing stint in the early 1990s that stalled his career’s momentum and destroyed his good looks. He continued to make movies – ranging from very good to very, very bad – before reviving his fortunes to some degree thanks to a critically acclaimed starring role in 2008’s The Wrestler.
Now, viewers can make up their own mind about Rourke’s wasted brilliance by watching Angel Heart and two lesser known gems, Fall Time and Animal Factory, available at SBS On Demand. All three are English-language films.
Angel Heart
Rourke as Harry Angel and De Niro as Louis Cyphre in ‘Angel Heart’. Source: SBS Movies
The case takes the cynical Angel to New Orleans where he encounters several people connected with the singer – old friend Toots Sweet (Brownie McGhee), high society ex-girlfriend Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling) and his daughter Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet) – who paint a picture of an evil man who dabbled in voodoo and witchcraft.
Before too long, corpses are popping up around New Orleans and Angel believes someone is setting him up as the fall guy for the murders. However, the truth behind the killings and what became of Favourite is far uglier than Angel could have imagined.
Angel Heart is based on William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel with a script written by its director Sir Alan Parker. The man who gave the cinematic world such wondrous fare as Fame and Mississippi Burning was allegedly scared to work with the notoriously difficult actor. In the end, the director had nothing to fear. As idiosyncratic and unpredictable as Rourke could be on set, he’s spellbinding as the dishevelled PI with a phobia of chickens.
It’s fascinating to see how far Rourke goes to appear unglamorous. In several scenes he wears a plastic nose guard attached to his sunglasses as protection from the harsh Louisiana sun. On anyone else it would look ridiculous, but he somehow pulls it off.
Angel Heart is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Fall Time
His face smashed to a pulp from one too many right hooks and financially on the ropes, Rourke was in no position to be fussy by 1995, which is probably how he wound up in the B-grade crime drama Fall Time, directed by Paul Warner.
It’s the late 1950s and three friends on the cusp of adulthood stage a fake kidnapping in a small town for a gag. But as bad luck would have it, their prank coincides with a real bank robbery, putting the teenage boys’ lives in jeopardy.
Rourke plays Florence, the brains behind the bank heist, who wears an eccentric outfit topped off by an outrageous tan jacket that doesn’t look particularly authentic to the time period.
He may have been billed below Stephen Baldwin, Sheryl Lee and David Arquette in the credits, but Rourke – furiously chewing scenery with oddball dialogue that may well have been adlibbed – is mesmerising as always in this intriguing indie flick.
Fall Time is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
Animal Factory
In 2000, Rourke worked for actor-turned-director Steve Buscemi in his harrowing drama Animal Factory, based on a novel by former criminal Eddie Bunker.
The film revolves around young drug dealer Ron Decker (Edward Furlong) who’s thrown into jail and forced to fend for himself until he is taken under the protective wing of Earl Copen (Willem Dafoe). The veteran con teaches the new ‘fish’ how to exploit the system and navigate the intricate world of prison politics, where a simple mistake can have deadly consequences. But as Decker adapts to life behind bars, he becomes more uncertain about Copen’s true motives for helping him.
Rourke only has a cameo as Decker’s cellmate Jan the Actress, but he commits 100% to the role. He would arrive on set in full make-up and with perfectly manicured long nails, even writing his riveting final monologue about wanting to be a butterfly and fly to Paris.
“That was all his,” Buscemi tells . “I only had him for a day and a half, and I remember not wanting to stop filming because he was just so fascinating to watch.”
Rourke’s late-career resurgence in The Wrestler was still eight years away, but Animal Factory showed movie fans that when motivated, he still had the desire to be one of the world’s greatest actors.
Animal Factory is now streaming at SBS On Demand.
