Angel-A Comedy or -A Drama?

Director: Luc Besson
Starring: Jamel Debbouze, Rie Rasmussen, Gilbert Melki, Serge Riaboukine
Running Time: 90 minutes
Classification: 15 Subtitled into English from French Black and White

Angel-A is a funnier film than it thinks it is. Director and writer Luc Besson (of Fifth Element fame) gives us an intentionally dramatical journey into the murky Parisian underground as Andre (Jamel Debbouze) attempts to pay off his spiralling debts. Intriguingly enough though, it is Besson’s natural wit and Debbouze’s wonderful comic timing that produce some hilarious scenes, while the drama is coincidently and ironically spoilt by the very same humour. Frankly, it’s funny, but it doesn’t really know that it is.

Set within the deserted Parisian streets of the modern day, Andre is a man in trouble. His debts with the hit-men of France are spiralling out of control and despite his charismatic charm, his diplomatic ability won’t be enough to get him out of his current peril. As it all becomes too much and he aims to commit suicide by leaping off one of the many Parisian bridges the film decides to show us, he sees Angel-A, a beautiful young girl also deciding to give up on life.

Played by Rie Rasmussen, the part of Angel-A is anything but normal. After Andre decides to save Angel instead of committing suicide himself, the part becomes increasingly surreal as she helps Andre out of debt and back to normality. Rasmussen plays the role tongue-in-cheek for the most part. Her humour is perfectly suited to that of Debbouze’s, but at times the serious aspects of the character suggest that the role has been utterly miscast. Watching the film however, you can't help but pick up on a certain deliberation and intent in her awkwardness that simply adds to the comedic element.

Andre himself is hilariously pathetic; Debbouze is something bordering on Monty Python silliness, with all the feebleness of David Schwimmer’s character from Friends. His improvisation and general uselessness totally steal the show, but as with Rasmussen, during more serious scenes he repeatedly looks miscast.

Indeed, right from the start when we see a hit-man seemingly shaving his beard using a knife, the film cannot possibly be taken seriously. The black and white moody shots of Paris paired with the over-grumpy music all seem like a parody of a film noir as we wait to be entertained once more. In fact, you could almost list Paris as a member of the cast on the credits such is Besson’s obsession with showing it. The angelic references to Rasmussen’s character are also way too obvious; it’s almost as if someone is slapping you round the face with a great big, wet fish while screaming, “you will understand the subliminal meaning!”

Unneeded symbolism is only a small problem though in contrast with the fact the film doesn’t know what it is. At times Debbouze is truly hilarious in the part of Andre, Rasmussen and the minor characters also offer brilliant comic support to the lead. However, the main problem is clearly that this is indeed a comedy, but no-one told Luc Besson. It seems that during the start of the film he wanted to make us laugh at Andre’s situation, and that by the end, we should feel some sort of sympathy for him as the movie takes a serious turn, but we don’t, we really, really don’t.

Angel-A could have been a brilliant comedy, instead the latter part of the film plods along at a slow pace, with the sort of blindingly obvious symbolism you’d expect to see in a Catholic children’s book. The humour is at times side-splittingly good, but the drama never reaches the realistic level that Besson clearly intended.

3/5  More than your average rom-com, Angel-A has a certain je ne sais quoi