In the mood for some rarely-seen film noir? Then swing on around and try a bit of “Angie’s Delight”, a relatively rare chunk of short noir. Based on the Phillip Margolin story, also named “Angie’s Delight”, this is an extremely ambitious concept, giving a public defender thirteen minutes to string together the pieces of an alibi that will free his client on a murder rap.
Which of course is enough to make you wonder from the outset. They’re going to try and set up an alibi for a murderer and the film only lasts thirteen minutes? We’ve all seen two hour movies that can barely do the job–surely “Angie’s Delight” can’t pull off this land-speed record for springing the wrongly accused?
Amazingly enough…”Angie’s Delight” manages to pull it off. Granted, in perhaps the most reprehensible and vile fashion possible, but it definitely manages to do the job. Even better, it manages to pack an incredible twist ending into the short run time. And I mean incredible–the last minute and a half of this beauty is going to blow your mind. All in all, I’m suitably impressed. “Angie’s Delight” is going to manage to do in thirteen minutes what many movies with far larger budgets could barely pull off in almost ten times as long. It’s gritty, it’s downright deplorable in spots, it’s everything you’ve come to expect from film noir, executed skillfully and put in a tiny package that should amaze you.
