(2001)
2.5
Karl Williams
Some interesting conflicts and character development nearly rescue this emotional drama that ultimately deflates, unable to define itself. Billed as a spooky, supernatural chiller with a twist in the same vein as The Sixth Sense (1999), this film from director Luis Mandoki possesses a few chills here and there but then actually turns out to be a rather run-of-the-mill romantic melodrama. Jennifer Lopez and James Caviezel show some acting chops as, respectively, an embittered cop and a damaged soul who's suffered an unfathomable tragedy, but the script they're servicing loses its way more than once, trying desperately to inject an ultimately phony and misleading sense of the mystical or otherworldly. The O. Henry-style "twist" at the end isn't really much of a surprise, given how many times it's hinted at in the narrative, while there's something lacking in the resolution of a family crisis suffered by Lopez's character, easily the more absorbing story line here. The film's look borrows from the dark, rain-swept oeuvre of M. Night Shyamalan, but the story that's unfolding is more like something from the squad room files of NYPD Blue than the pages of a good ghost story script, despite marketing attempts to position the film differently. Despite some good acting and a promising subplot, Angel Eyes (2001) doesn't work, unable to convince an audience of its authenticity, so uncertain is it of its own identity.
Angel Eyes on AllMovie
Angel Eyes (2001)
