Film poster for Angel Eyes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Mark Holcomb of The Village Voice is right: Jennifer Lopez, in Angel Eyes (2001), is “winningly brassy/bashful.” In this Luis Mandoki film, written by Gerald DiPego, she plays a brassy/bashful policewoman, while handsome Jim Caviezel plays a shaken fellow on a moonbeam. The two fall in love.
For about an hour Angel Eyes sustained me because of J. Lo’s performance and pulchritude and the film’s considerable freshness. Indeed, it is not oblivious to the spiritual dimension of human life. But by and by DiPego throws all credibility and unsentimental honesty out the window, as witness the silliness about Caviezel’s newly received blessing of a pet dog named Bob. That spiritual dimension hardly means very much alongside material like this. Let it be lamented, too, that Hollywood folks do not care how sentimental their movies are so long as they’re unabashedly commercial; that’s all that matters. But I want to believe that Lopez and Caviezel rise above the money-mindedness enough to respect their craft of acting, for neither of them lets us down. And there’s still that worthwhile first hour.
