In the four-and-a-half decades he\u2019s been making movies, Neil Jordan has shown an affinity for a variety of supernatural creatures, both malevolent and benign. From The Company of Wolves<\/em><\/a> and High Spirits<\/em> to Interview with the Vampire<\/em><\/a> and Byzantium<\/em>, he\u2019s given werewolves, ghosts, and vampires their due. His 2009 film Ondine<\/em> even plays off the legend of the selkie, although that one winds up having more of a grounding in realism. Reality, after all, is where the monsters are decidedly human, something Jordan, who turns 75 today, first explored in his directorial debut, 1982\u2019s Angel<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Made under the aegis of executive producer John Boorman, for whom he worked as a creative consultant on Excalibur<\/em>, Angel<\/em> was Jordan\u2019s second film to touch on the Troubles after 1981\u2019s Traveller<\/em>, which he wrote but did not direct. Jordan\u2019s dissatisfaction with how that turned out spurred him to insist on taking the reins of his next script. \u201cI loved the flights of imagination this medium took me to,\u201d he writes in his 2024 memoir Amnesiac<\/em>, \u201cwould have been happy to write for it forever, but couldn\u2019t face the same experience again.\u201d Luckily for him, Channel Four took a chance on the novice director, and with matching funds procured from the Irish Film Board by Boorman, he was off and running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What he ran with was the story of a saxophonist named Danny (Stephen Rea, in his first of many films for Jordan) who systematically hunts down the men responsible for killing his manager and a deaf-mute girl he met at a dance hall where his band played. At the outset, it appears Danny\u2019s world has little overlap with the sectarian violence that flared up in Ireland in the late \u201960s and was still raging when Jordan penned his screenplay. Hence the band\u2019s drummer\u2019s pointed question about whether the hall is \u201cpaying danger money,\u201d which Ray, their manager, dismisses. \u201cNone of that, boys,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re musicians.\u201d Besides, he knows he\u2019s already paid for protection, which ironically paints a target on his back. When four thugs in stocking masks and balaclavas show up brandishing machine guns, it doesn\u2019t matter which side Ray paid. There\u2019s still the other one to worry about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Danny, his primary motivation for seeking revenge is the deaf-mute girl, with whom he made a tentative connection in spite of her tender age. \u201cYou\u2019re too young,\u201d he says when she comes on to him, but he doesn\u2019t exactly run away. That she\u2019s shot right in front of him is perhaps more of a shock than the dance hall blowing up moments later. He\u2019s so dazed by the experience that the next morning when he\u2019s being questioned by the police, he can only remember one detail \u2013 one of the men wore an orthopedic shoe \u2013 and doesn\u2019t share it. Instead, Danny alternates rehearsing with his reformed band (dubbed The New Pretenders) and chasing down clues that lead him to the killers, each of whom gives him another part of the explanation for what went down that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Jordan doesn\u2019t comment directly on the Troubles, they are an ever-present part of the film\u2019s milieu, between the armed soldiers on the scene of the bombing, and the one stationed on the street outside the run-down building where Danny\u2019s aunt lives. There\u2019s also \u201cIRA\u201d graffiti spray-painted on the house where he confronts the club-footed perp identified by his scuffle walk. Shortly after, one of the coppers on the case makes the first overt reference to Catholics and Protestants, but professes his neutrality by saying he\u2019s Jewish. \u201cAre you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?\u201d Danny asks, showing he hasn\u2019t lost his ironic sense of humor, even if he has killed one man and is primed to kill his second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout, Jordan punctuates the violence with stylized musical numbers as the New Pretenders ply their trade under new management. One of the gigs secured for them, though, is in a mental hospital, leading to a scene straight out of Amnesiac<\/em> where Danny\u2019s solo saxophone playing attracts the patients. It\u2019s an unnerving sequence, matched by Danny\u2019s encounter with a shell-shocked widow at a farmhouse where he seeks shelter after carrying out his latest hit. The closer he gets to his goal, however, the less human he becomes \u2013 and the less he understands why he\u2019s still pursuing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the years following Angel<\/em>, the Troubles returned to the forefront of Jordan\u2019s imagination in The Crying Game<\/em> (which netted him the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) and Breakfast on Pluto<\/em>. His loyalty to the Irish film industry remained strong as well, using his clout from the success of The Crying Game<\/em> and Interview with the Vampire<\/em> to mount the big-budget historical drama Michael Collins<\/em>, the project he\u2019d originally hoped to follow Angel<\/em> with. He also continues to make films there, most recently the New York-set Greta<\/em> and the Los Angeles-set Marlowe<\/em>. Considering how many Hollywood films set in the Emerald Isle were filmed on studio backlots, it\u2019s only right for Jordan to return the favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAngel\u201d isn\u2019t on any streaming service, but the <\/em>Twilight Time Blu-ray<\/em><\/a> is available from Screen Archives Entertainment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/angel2-1024x576.jpg\")
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