Angel

An apocalyptic voyage into violence triggered by a chilling sectarian double murder of which Danny, a sax player in a rock showband, becomes first witness and subsequently avenger. The movie bristles with visual ironies, downbeat humour, upbeat action, and is powered by a sequence of chance encounters as Stephen Rea's Danny, like Lee Marvin in Point Blank, picks up the trail of the killers and, swapping his sax for a gun, pursues them through the towns and countryside of Armagh. Ostensibly a naturalistic thriller, but reaching beyond to hyper-realism and surrealism, Angel carries subtle echoes of Buñuel and the early Scorsese films (Who's That Knocking at My Door?, Mean Streets), but remains uniquely true to its time and place - contemporary Ireland. A stunning debut from an esteemed novelist.