After a 10-year absence from directing, which he spent producing and writing action flicks (The Transporter), comedies (the American version of his Taxi) and even animated films (Arthur and the Invisibles), prolific French filmmaker Luc Besson calls the shots once again in this oddball fantasy, strikingly shot in black-and-white in and around Paris. André (Amélie co-star Jamel Debbouze), a hoodlum with heavy debts to mobsters, is about to jump off a bridge into the Seine River when he notices Angel-A (Rie Rasmussen), a beautiful, tall blonde woman about to do the same. She takes the plunge, he saves her, and the two become companions, with André seeing her as his guardian angel. The thing is, she actually is an angel, who proceeds to help him straighten out his life. An off-kilter mix of It’s a Wonderful Life sentiments, Wings of Desire-like philosophy, spry humor and mobster mayhem, Angel-A is a one-of-a-kind concoction.

Shelf Talk: Despite the Besson name, Angel-A couldn’t find an audience stateside, though it did well overseas, where the auteur is quite a hot commodity. With Sony pumping up online awareness and the disc’s striking box art, featuring silvery images of the leads, Angel-A will likely corral a decent if not magnifique audience here among hardcore indie scene watchers as well as those familiar with Besson’s idiosyncratic resume.