Angel Eyes

Angel Eyes

Jennifer Lopez is the real thing, one of those actresses who can win our natural sympathy. She proves it in “Angel Eyes,” playing a tough cop who wants to shut out the world and yet always seems open, worthy of trust and caring for. The story involves her skittish, arm’s-length relationship with a man named Catch (Jim Caviezel), whose walls are higher than hers.

Who is this Catch? He walks the streets in a long overcoat, head down, lonely, depressed, looking like one of the angels in “Wings of Desire.” Once a week he brings groceries to a shut-in named Elanora (Shirley Knight). The first time he sees Sharon, the Lopez character, he stops and stares at her through a restaurant window not with lust or curiosity, but as if he’s trying to repair some lost connection.

Lopez builds Sharon not out of spare parts from old cop movies but specific details. She is technically good police officer disciplined confident brave. She wants to do well; she wants to fight evil; only gradually do we learn that she may have come by this career path early on when she dialed 911 after her father (Victor Argo) beat up her mother (Sonia Braga). Her dad disowned her for that; her brother is still mad about it; even mom sticks up for him he never did it again, she says and Sharon counters maybe because he would’ve if I hadn’t acted. Maybe fighting lawbreakers is how she proves she was right.

Directed by Luis Mandoki, the movie has opening scenes that are intriguing: Is this a thriller? A supernatural film? Who do the angel eyes belong to? An angel? Or does Catch only act like a guardian angel while keeping secrets of his own? We’re still asking these questions during a stretch where Sharon is staring down the barrel of gun, and her life is saved by Catch.

They talk. It’s like a verbal chess game. Catch doesn’t answer questions; he parries them; his responses reframe the discussion, the way an unexpected move alters the logic of the board. She invites him over to her house; he pokes through some drawers. She likes him; she starts kissing him; he doesn’t want to be kissed.

They settle into cat-and-mouse rhythm in which one then other flees, one then other pursues: She follows him back to his apartment it’s empty except for a futon “This is it,” he says. “I live here. I walk around town. That’s it, except for how I feel about you.” But how does he feel about her? “Angel Eyes” is a coy romance between two people who want both to be left alone with each other, and their dance of attraction and retreat proves as compelling as anything else in movie.

Along the way secrets about both their family situations spill out credit screenwriter Gerald DiPego for not resolving father standoff with easy payoff and by this point in film we’ve come to expect nothing but trouble from any character who has relatives or ever called 911.

Many cop movies are made because they lead such exciting lives that can be molded into an entertaining plot. They have run-ins with the wrong people, see action, and spend hours drinking coffee in diners where they could talk to their colleagues without it looking awkward. “Angel Eyes” is a cop movie for these reasons and more; though its real story isn’t about the police but rather damaged souls finding solace through love.

Jim Caviezel had been acting for 10 years before “Angel Eyes,” but it was “The Thin Red Line” (1998) that introduced him to audiences, followed by his performance as Dennis Quaid’s radio linked to the past son in “Frequency.” He is passively elusive this time around, a front for great depths of feeling. If he doesn’t want to meet anyone so much, why Sharon? The answer has been staring us down since the opening shot.

Lopez is given a tough assignment here: she has to be believable in touchy dialogue scenes as well as action ones. She and Caviezel play tricky notes so do the other actors, especially Victor Argo as a stubborn old man and Sonia Braga as his torn wife. The screenplay doesn’t let them off easy. And what simplicity and conviction Shirley Knight brings to her role; veteran actors should study her work here, because she never goes for effect or pushes false emotion she just embodies acceptance. This is a very good movie.

P.S.: I don’t know whose dead body would have had to lie there in order for “Angel Eyes” not to chicken out during its final seconds. The movie gets directly on pitch at the end and then too soon the soundtrack slams in with David Gray singing “Sail Away With Me Honey,” shattering everything that went before. I know Hollywood believes every audience needs an upbeat ending tacked on below zero, but this film does not need it, has earned its last silence. Could the screen have at least faded to black, before that awful crash?

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