Film Quote of the Day: The Robert De Niro Line From 1987 That May Be His Most Underrated

Robert De Niro is one of those actors that I just buy in any role. So when he played Satan in a 1987 film noir, I was all in. Angel Heart is a psychological thriller that I feel like barely gets talked about today.

It recently got a 4K restoration that's pristine, and I want to encourage everyone to actually go check it out. There's some epic Mickey Rourke moment in the movie, and seeing these guys play off one another is special.

There's one line De Niro has in the movie that is a big reveal and lines up the plot in perfect noir-speak.

Let's dive in.

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The Scene in Question

Alan Parker’s Angel Heart is a wild hybrid of a 1940s detective mystery and supernatural horror, all rolled up into a kind of sexy mystery.

You get Mickey Rourke playing Harry Angel, a down-on-his-luck Brooklyn P.I. hired by a mysterious, impeccably dressed client with long fingernails and a well-groomed beard named Louis Cyphre (say that name out loud slowly if you haven't seen it).

It's at this moment I pause to say this whole idea rocks, and the movie knows it, leaning into the batshit moments and letting you have fun and get scared with them, too.

Cyphre wants Angel to track down a missing singer named Johnny Favorite, and he can pay well for the job. So it gets taken.

De Niro plays Satan with panache, blending into the background and hanging with everyday people so you see him pop up in a Harlem church, in a diner eating hard-boiled eggs, and all over the city.

During one of their meetings, as Harry gets closer to unraveling a truth he really shouldn't be digging into, Cyphre drops some evil wisdom on him.

"However cleverly you sneak up on a mirror, your reflection always looks you straight in the eye."

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What The Quote Means

On a purely cinematic level, it’s a brilliant piece of writing that was adapted from William Hjortsberg’s novel Falling Angel. But delivered by De Niro with that calm, sinister gravity, it operates on several layers.

On its face, it’s about the impossibility of self-deception. You can try to trick yourself, outrun your past, or build a totally new identity to hide from what you’ve done. You can rationalize bad decisions or bury your worst secrets so deep nobody else will ever find them. But you can't sneak past your own conscience.

The truth is always waiting for you.

On the other hand, this is a plant and payoff for the secret character in the movie... De Niro's identity.

Harry is running a case that constantly forces him to look into mirrors, both literally and metaphorically. He thinks he's investigating someone else's dark secrets, totally unaware that every clue he uncovers is just pulling back the curtain on his own soul and why he should be damned.

Yeah, Satan is scary, but is he scarier than the bad things we've done in our lives?

Summing It All Up

We tend to celebrate De Niro for his explosive moments, but Angel Heart shows off what makes him a master of restraint.

I mean, a few years later, we saw Pacino as the devil, and he went the opposite way. While they're both good, it's kind of funny to see De Niro play it so reserved and creepy.

So, go watch Angel Heart and see how the movie plays this line off.

Let me know what you think in the comments.