Directed by Luc Besson

It's Paris. It's black and white. Short petty criminal loser contemplating suicide saves tall blonde angel doing same. But really she's here to save him. She kicks some ass. They fall in love. Her mission is accomplished. Must they part?

Jamel Debbouze as Andre the would-be suicide is originally a stand-up comedian. Unfortunately, he seems much more at home doing funny than doing introspective or romantic. Rie Rasmussen, a weirdly beautiful skinny blonde who made her name as a model, is certainly an interesting screen presence, the spikiest angel I've ever seen. On paper they might have made a successful odd couple... on screen it just doesn't work.

The plot staggers along - Andre is in debt to most of the underworld, seemingly, though we never know quite how. Trying to joke his way out of corners isn't working any more, so he's thinking about chucking himself off a Seine bridge. But wait, there's a beautiful six-foot blonde in a little black dress (and I do mean little) about to do the same. So naturally he has to save her instead. Turns out she's an angel, and she straight away sets about helping him sort out the criminal scum he's in trouble with. Apparently by offering them fantastic sex. Though later it's posited that what she's actually done is beat them up. Which would be more shocking in an angel?

Meanwhile a bemused Andre gets drunk in a comic sort of way (indicated by the number of empty glasses on the bar, and a bit of swaying about). They stroll around Paris, mostly crossing and recrossing the most photogenic bridges, which do look quite nice, but it's hardly the great declaration of love to the city that Besson has talked about. Director of Photography Thierry Arbogast cites Woody Allen's MANHATTAN as a main reference, quelle surprise, but rather than the edgily romantic city we see there, here Paris is merely pretty. The Big Idea of the film, redemption by self-acceptance, sits uncomfortably in this world of casual violence by the redeeming force, and as for the Platonic notion that Angela and Andre are two halves of the same being - well, having Angela say it doesn't make us really believe it. It's all a bit of a muddle. It has neither the poetry of WINGS OF DESIRE nor the tough optimism against all the odds of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, and as it drags its way towards its slow and rather sentimental end (Oh get on with it!) you have the feeling Besson doesn't really know quite where he wants it to go.