Heaven (1999)

Last night I watched "Heaven" on television. I was about to skip it because I hadn't heard nothing about it. Luckily, I stayed tuned. And I say luckily because it's one of the best films that I've seen lately. "Heaven" is a marvelous conjunction of neo-noir drama with a surprising touch of magic realism. The story-line is so original that caught me in a while. The film construction is puzzling, but never confusing, and helps the film to be even more thrilling and fascinating than it's promising premise allowed us to expect. The editing job here is really remarkable; I'd dare to say it is, along with "Pulp Fiction" and "Memento", one of the most coherent and creative works seen in the nineties American filming. Martin Donovan is excellent, as well as the rest of the cast, but if you look for one unforgettable character, the travesty Heaven, sweet, strong in her weakness and with the surprising ability to anticipate the fate of those who surround her, will immediately catch your eye. After watching "The ugly" and this extraordinary piece of film art, I'm really looking forward to see Scott Reynold's new project.

Based on a myriad of very positive comments here, as well as my experience watching the director's previous film _The Ugly_ and enjoying it, I rented _Heaven_. What an awful film! Don't believe the hype. There's a very good reason this bypassed theaters and went straight to video. It's an ugly, mean-spirited, depressing film, with characters that it is hard to understand and like. The acting is good--it's amazing to see Richard Schiff, so likeable on _The West Wing_, playing such a sleaze. Martin Donovan is good, as are Joanna Going and Patrick Malahide. Too bad the story doesn't have more going for it. And what's with the son of Donovan/Going's characters? Both of them have obvious American accents, but the kid talks like he just got off the plane from Australia or New Zealand (the latter, I guess). Other than chopping things up and presenting them out of order, so that what we think is going to happen isn't necessarily what does happen, this film really has very little going for it. _Memento_ it is NOT! Here's hoping that Scott Reynold's next film, _When Strangers Appear_ is an improvement.

this is a very confusing mishmash of a film, with very disagreable people in it. the actor who played the night club owner almost made me turn the film off. martin donavan who is a fine actor did not convince me, in the slightest. the music & cinematography was good & Danny Edwards as Heaven was excellent most of the others were either hateful or annoying my rating is only ** as alwaysjay harris

Excellent movie. I thought it was going to be weird, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable movie - from start to finish. See it. You will be entertained. It starts out kind of weird like I said. But sooner or later it explains it self and you know the reason why it was strange in the beginning....