Angel and the Bad Man (2009) Lou Diamond Phillips, Deborah Kara Unger, Luke Perry, Terence Kelly Movie Review

Angel and the Bad Man (2009)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Lou Diamond Phillips and Deborah Kara Unger in Angel and the Bad Man (2009)

A Fallen Angel

Having been seriously hurt, notorious gunman Quirt Evans (Lou Diamond Phillips) comes across the farm of Thomas Worth (Terence Kelly), his wife and his daughter Temperance (Deborah Kara Unger) a widow with a young son. Before passing out they take him in to town where he sends an urgent telegram concerning a land claim before Thomas and Temperance take him back home where the doctor operates on him. Whilst past out and listening to his ramblings Temperance becomes smitten with Quirt and despite her religious upbringing as a Quaker falls for him. But whilst Quirt recuperates at the farm trouble comes his way in the form of Laredo Stevens (Luke Perry) and Hondo Jeffries (John Tench) are in town to get even.

Two things I have found myself frequently saying: firstly remakes are never for those who are fans of the original movie and secondly some of these recent made for TV westerns are not that bad. Now that means I should like the 2009 remake "Angel and the Bad Man" having yet to watch the John Wayne original and actually enjoying some of these modern TV westerns. But at times this remake is an unremitting slog of a movie, slow, melodramatic and extremely false in the way it comes across with actors pretending to be cowboys.

It isn't all bad and between the storyline which sees Temperance having an effect on Quirt and some dramatic scenes as Quirt tries to help the people of the town there is plenty of entertainment still to be had. In fact this movie owes a lot to Lou Diamond Phillips and Deborah Kara Unger because they manage to bring some life to proceedings and the simmering romance between them has some believability.

What this all boils down to is that "Angel and the Bad Man", as in this 2009 remake did next to nothing for me and with the exception of a couple of the actors putting in reasonable performances this had that manufactured feel of people pretending to be hard living cowboys and so on.


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