Gabriel.

This film is part of an unofficial new wave of indie cinema (the last probably being Tarantino’s movies which have gone on to reinvent Hollywood). It’s a slow wave but an important one; it teaches us that thanks to the availability of PC’s you can create a decent looking set of effects for very little money, making it more possible than ever before to make a cool little movie without the need for big bucks from Hollywood. I do hope this movie encourages more people to make movies because it’s always the indie directors who have cooler ideas. Of course these movies are far from the grand scale of a Hollywood blockbuster but they are hardly ‘little money’. This movie, for example got its funding from the government.

However that doesn’t make the movie good and I tell you now, this movie was painfully disappointing. It had a lot of rough edges which are to be expected for a budget indie movie but all the bad writing and acting and chorography can’t simply be excused because it had a small budget. I think style over substance can only work with a big budget, because the style has to be damn beautiful to make you ignore the shortcomings and a small budget can’t do that. Although the use of eyes to indicate the sides and use of powers and stuff was very interesting.

Okay, so the story. There’s this place called ‘Purgatory’ where seven even dudes called ‘The Fallen’ reside who have taken it over and made it an evil place. So God sends in an Archangel every cycle to attempt to restore light to the place and kill The Fallen and so far all have failed; now everything rests on Gabriel’s shoulders. Gabriel meets the other archangels along the way, plays hero (with beautifully disastrous results) and eliminates The Fallen. It’s really that simple. Well until the ending comes and you sit there going, “What in the hell just happened?”

Now I tell you, the whole ‘Angels are God’s soldier’s’ Old Testament angle is awesome and so are angels with guns. I’ve been heavily into this stuff for years and have yet to find anything even close to this (except maybe Supernatural but it lacks the guns). But...I don’t know, all Gabriel had was a couple of silenced pistols and some weird martial arts, I understand the budget limitations and the film explains that the Angels attempt to become human to hide from The Fallen (so innocents don’t get caught up and the angel doesn’t get jumped) but it all seems like an excuse. I mean they could have at least given Gabriel a white magnum with a crucifix emblazoned along the barrel now that would have been badass!

For all its bad writing, bad choreography and awful plotting I think there is an audience for this movie. If you’ve longed for an action movie with badass angels (like me) you’ll probably be more forgiving, if you can forgive it’s rough edges you’ll be really surprised at something of the things in this movie (like when Gabriel outruns his own shotgun blast to punch some in the face, holy hell awesome!) and if the action means more to you than anything else I think you can at least get a little out of this movie. But if all angels are to you are some pretty boys (the actor playing Gabriel is insanely pretty) in dresses, or you like your action movies with big budgets, I don’t think you’ll get anything out of this movie.

Think about it!

-Locke.