Heaven's Prisoners (1996) Louisiana Bayou Noir

Directed by Phil Joanou (Dead-End for Delia - Fallen Angels Noir TV Series).

Written by Harley Peyton and Scott Frank, and based on James Lee Burke's novel. Cinematography by Harris Savides (The Yards, Zodiac) and Music by George Fenton.

The film stars Alec Baldwin (Miami Blues, Motherless Brooklyn) as Dave Robicheaux, Kelly Lynch (Cold Around the Heart) as Annie Robicheaux, Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes) as Robin Gaddis, Teri Hatcher (Two Days in the Valley, ) as Claudette Rocque, Eric Roberts as Bubba Rocque, Vondie Curtis-Hall as Minos P. Dautrieve, Hawthorne James as Victor Romero, Badja Djola as Batist, Joe Viterelli as Didi Giancano, Paul Guilfoyle as Detective Magelli, Don Stark as Eddie Keats, Carl A. McGee as "Toot", Jacob "Tuck" Milligan as Jerry "Fallout," and Samantha Lagpacan as Alafair.

Story

Right from the get go you get a back story. Dave Robicheaux in a confessional telling his priest that he wants a drink, basically all the time. He's an Alkie. 

In the Classic Noir days they just show you a flashback of the character slugging 'em down. No messages. Think in The Dark Corner where there's one scene where Detective Gault has a bottle of booze and a bottle of mix both in one hand pouring out his drink mostly into a glass with the rest all over the desk. Tells you all you need to know without the sap. Two or three seconds. This Neo Noir must waste five minutes on it. But at least its done with style. 

Dave and his wife Annie run Robicheaux's Boat and Bait camp. They are out on the bayou in their jug boat enjoying a day on the water. 

Alec Baldwin as Dave Robicheaux

Kelly Lynch as Annie Robicheaux

Annie is getting a bit frisky but their lovemaking session which is about to change gear is interrupted by a plane flying low over the trees trailing a plume of smoke with an engine sputtering. Its passes right overhead dips a wing tip into the water and rolls with a great splash into the bayou.

Its sinking fast nose first. Annie calls the coast guard with coordinates and Dave gets the jug boat started and speeds to the wreck just as the tail goes under. 

Dave grabs his scuba gear and a pry bar and jumps in swimming down to the wreck. He prys the cabin door open and a body of tattooed man floats out. Inside the cabin all are dead, except for a young girl icking her feet saved by an air pocket in the tail.

Dave pulls her to him and as they are about to surface they meet Annie who takes the child from Dave and brings her to the surface and the jug boat. Annie preforms rescue breathing and compressions and revives the young girl. They take the girl to a nearby Catholic Hospital run by nuns, tell them her name is Alafair, and then when they get the ok, to their coon ass fish and bait camp in the swamp. 

A few days later "Downtown" Dautrieve a DEA officer comes out to the Robicheaux's looking for Dave and asking questions about the wreck. He mentions that he's read Dave's files and knows he's ex NOPD, and that he "smoked" three guys, one of whom was a gov witness. 

 Vondie Curtis-Hall as Minos P. Dautrieve

Dave replies the guy was a dealer and a pimp. Dautrieve notices Alafair walking with Annie off in the distance and mentions to Dave that a diver pulled a suitcase out of the wreck filled with a young girls clothes. We get the impression he's put two and two together. Dautrieve cautions Dave not to mention one of the victims in the wreck with the snake tattoo. There were only two women and the priest on the plane, is his official story, if he doesn't want him coming back with immigration.

In good Noir fashion Dave disregards Dautrieve's warning and figures out that someone sabotaged the plane to kill the guy with the tattoo, and that someone didn't know that their would be anyone else on the plane. Since Alafair is the survivor Dave tells Annie that it may be a good idea to find out who the tattoo guy was and from that figure out who they got to worry about.

The next day Dave and Batiste go back out to the wreck and Dave dives down to see if he can find out any clues. What he comes up with a swizzle stick from Smiling Jacks a strip bar in New Orleans.

The swizzle stick dissolves into the vertical red neon sign proclaiming "Smiling Jacks" attached to a brick building in The French Quarter, New Orleans. Dave arrives in his 1983 Chevrolet C-10 pickup. 

It's a strip club that he's very familiar with. 

Dave walks right through the bar and heads to the backstage dressing room.

He pays a visit to Robin a blonde stripper who does a "Here Comes the Bride" stip routine. She syas she is surprised to see him, explains that she heard he waa selling bait nowadays.

She tells him she is about to go on, and brings him out to the bar. At the bar Dave asks about the guy with the snake tattoo. 

Hearing all this is conversation, is the bartender Jerry Falgout, who turns out to be a guy he busted five years ago.

Jerry Falgout: Don't you remember me?

Dave Robicheaux: It's Jerry somethin'-or-other, right? You went up the road 'bout five years ago for bashin' in some tired, wizened, broken-down old man with a lead pipe, ain't that right, Jerry? How was Angola, brother?

Jerry Falgout: Can I buy you a drink, Lieutenant? As I recall, you used to get kinda thirsty 'bout this time of day.

Dave Robicheaux: Hey, you're gettin' in my face, podna.

Jerry Falgout: So?

Dave Robicheaux:  So right about now I'm thinkin' your head make a real nice toilet brush.

Dave finds out from Robin that the guy with the snake tatts, name was Johnny Dartez and he was a drug runner for Bubba Rocque. She warns Dave about Bubba. Dave cuts in, explaining he knows Bubba he grew up with him. 

A couple of days later back at the bayou, it begins to drift Noirsville when Dave gets roughed up by a couple of gorilla's. The goons tracked him down after they broke one of Robin's fingers in a door. Nice guys They tell him to quit nosing around, threatening to cut his ears off. Really nice guys.

Dautrieve shows up at Daves and admits that Johnny Dartez was working for the DEA and he had infiltrated Bubba's organization. Dautrieve warns Dave about Bubba Rocque.  Dave replies' that he knows Bubba, they grew up together. 

Later, after Dautrieve splits, Dave explains to Annie that the sheriff was a dry cleaner before he got elected and he's not going to do anything, so he's going to have to act. He's going back to New Orleans to straighten things out.

Cut to Dave first visiting Robin at her flop. He gives her a plane ticket to Key West and a contact for a job waitressing and $200 bucks. He tells her that he's going to do some paybacks for both of them, and she's got to get out of town for protection, he doesn't want her hurt anymore.

Dave next pays a visit to Smiling Jacks, and leans on Jerry Falgout the bartender / manager who confesses that there is a standing offer of $100 for info on anyone nosing around about Bubba. 

Cut to Dave driving out in the 1983 Chevrolet C-10, to Bubba's combo Greek Revival and Italianate-styled mansion. Greeting him from a second story balcony is Claudette Rocque watching Dave, standing completely naked with only a rocks glass of mint julip for an accessory.  

Teri Hatcher as Claudette Rocque

Claudette makes sure Dave sees her from every side through the iron railing as she slowly turns and then disappears into the mansion. 

A servant brings Dave out to an al fresco boxing ring under live oaks shade trees where Bubba and his partner are sparing. Bubba is surprised to see Dave. Invites him to have a drink and some shrimp cocktail. 

Eric Roberts as Bubba Rocque

Dave tells Bubba that he has a problem, a Haitian named Toot and a guy named Eddie Keats gave him some grief, put a few stitches in his head. They got tipped by a bartender at Smiling Jack who called one of your clubs. 

Bubba tells him that he knows Eddie Keats and he does not work for him. Toot is crazy and likes to torture people and take pictures. 

Claudette appears wearing a lace robe and joins them. Bubba introduces her by reminding Dave she was from New Iberia, and that her mother was Hattie Fontaneux and ran a string of cribs on Railroad Ave. Dave tells them he has to go, and gets up. Bubba tells him he'll make some phone calls and see if he can locate Eddie Keats for him, adding that if anybody gives you any trouble he'll cancel his ass. 

Claudette announces that she'll walk Dave out. At the truck Claudette reveals to Dave that Eddie Keats has the Jungle Club out on the highway. Before she walks away she asks Dave if he liked her butterfly? Dave replies that he didn't notice it. Claudette smiles and replies "sure you did."

The next day Annie gets a visit from Victor Romero. She confronts him with a shotgun. He tells her to tell Dave he was there to see him. Meanwhile later that night, Dave, still in New Orleans, goes out for a visit to the Jungle Club and splits Eddie's head open with a pool cue. 

When Dave comes back to the bayou he finds Annie upset about the threatening visit from Victor Romero. They get into a spat about him not being a cop anymore and that she's not ready for another tour. Dave, pissed heads out to a local bar and is thinking of going off the wagon. 

Meanwhile Mob boss Didi Giancano has a meeting with Bubba to express his dismay about the way Bubba is making waves with his clumsy handling of the Johnny Dartez hit. 

Bubba counters that how was he supposed to know Dartez had a side hustle with illegal aliens. Diancano also tells Bubba that he hears that Dave Robicheaux paid him a visit. Robicheaux gave the mob a lot of headaches.

Bubba Rocque: Dave Robicheaux drowned in the bottle and went into the swamp to sleep it off.

Didi Giancano: He may have been asleep, but that was before you dropped a fucking plane on his head and woke him up. Guys like that, when they wake up, they don't go back to sleep so easy. Not without help.

Dave comes back to to the camp and tells Annie that he went to Tee & Eggs but didn't have a drink, an ended up sitting on the dock thinking all night. 

That night, during a thunderstorm, it all goes Noirsville when a hit is attempted on Dave. 

He's awakened by the thunder. He leaves Annie in bed and gets up, grabs some orange juice and goes out on the porch. During one of the flashes of lightning he spots one of the boats drifting away from the dock and heads out to secure it. 

He grabs a boat hook and while attempting to hook the skiff he spots a unfamiliar motor boat beached along a bank. ThenDave spots three men with shotguns running back towards the camp. Save screams that he's over here, but the men can't here and are almost to the house. Dave dives off the dock and swims back towards the camp. 

When he gets near the camp he runs into the third hitman still outside. He knock him down and grabs his shotgun just as the two man inside go into the bedroom and start blasting away, killing Annie. 

This is about the halfway point of the film. 

Noirsville

This is a decent Neo Noir. The story is is good enough, and the gritty cinematography is great. Director Joanou and cinematographer Salvides immerse you in the languid New Orleans / Bayou atmospherics.

However, like I mentioned at the get go, all the exposition for the various characters lengthens the thtale to 2hr and 12 minutes. It could have been tightened up a bit.

In a Classic Hollywood low budget Noir all these backstories would have been conveyed as tropes in a much more streamlined manner. For instance, Robicheaux being an ex drunk, a quick montage would have conveyed all that, instead we get a long confessional sequence. In contrast they did streamline Claudette. Her opening visual introduction tells all you need to know. 

Baldwin is doing, I suspect, a cajun accent, but since I'm not familiar with that, I really can't comment whether or not it's believable. Roberts and Viterelli are great as underworld figures. Hatcher, and Masterson play convincing drunks, while Lynch does sweet and concerned well. Vondie Curtis-Hall is very good as the DEA agent. It definitely is worth a watch. 7.5/10.