Rating: 3.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2016 | 36/52 | USA Up All Night
New York. The city of angels. Harold Gorman, sitting on a water tower, is out to make more angels as he opens fire on random pedestrians. Men, women, and children collapse, confusing and horrifying the surrounding people.
Peter Nicholas, a Catholic NYPD detective, takes the initiative and climbs the water tower to speak to the shooter. The news interviews Harold’s mother, who doesn’t believe her son is capable of this — from a moral standpoint, and the physical impossibility of the shots made.
Peter asks Harold why he’s doing this:
— You promise you won't tell anyone else? — I can't promise that, Harold. That's my job to find out. — Well, I'll tell you, anyway. God told me to.
Harold dives head first off the water tower, to his death.
The experience shakes Peter and his faith. As he investigates, similar patterns occur across the city. Stabbings, shootings, family murders — all done because the assailant claims Gold told them to. The result will bring shocking revelations about the person behind it and Peter himself.
While initially a police procedural, the film merges science fiction concepts. The results are jarring, but appropriately so. The flashback scenes, in particular, are wild as hell.
Tony Lo Bianco’s Peter Nicholas is sincere but ashamed of his faith, hiding it from his girlfriend. His ex-wife (whom he won’t divorce for moral reasons) pities his faith, as it doesn’t seem to bring him joy. His performance blends the tough New York cop trope with a softer, more curious person who is afraid to show himself.
The film explores faith as a distancing object — how people use God to avoid letting people know them and get close to them. By defining yourself as a religious person, you create an unknowable person within you.
This film is the first great movie I’ve seen by Larry Cohen. He’s always been unafraid to get weird, but this is the most successful execution I’ve seen.
** SPOILERS ** This is a superior Scanners