Le retour d'Angel

If you have been reading my reviews, you will have seen that I have reviewed the original "Angel" movie and its first sequel "Avenging Angel". So what took me so long to get to "Angel III"? Well, I DID see this movie years ago... but on commercial television, and it seemed unfair to review an exploitation movie when it had been extensively edited. But today I found an uncut copy at a thrift store and watched it, so I'll review it now.

First, the good stuff. The production values of this movie are not only good, they are the best of the three New World "Angel" movies. It looks like some serious money was spent at times. It's odd that this movie went straight to video when the cheaper-looking first two movies were theatrically released.

When it comes to sleaze, the movie delivers more than the first two movies combined. There is a significant amount of nudity, and some of this sleaze is pretty funny to watch (like the porn film shoot.) The performances by the cast are pretty good, giving us likable good guys and hissable bad guys. (But it's clear that Adams and Roundtree only spent a few days being filmed for their surprisingly smaller-than-you'd-expect roles.)

Now for the not-so-good stuff: I thought the confrontation scene of Angel with her mother made less than an impact that I think it would in real life. (Maybe the filmmakers were afraid of being too harsh.) The main ways the movie screws up is that the movie is both too long (100 minutes long!) and too slow. There's a lot here that could be eliminated, which would have given the movie an appropriately zippy pace. Also, there is the unexplained thing about Angel being a photographer in this movie - in the previous movie she was studying law... what happened?

If you suffered through the disappointing first two "Angel" movies, this movie will give you some relief... though you'll still think it could be better. As for "Angel 4" (made by a different production company), I guess I will review it if I find a copy - I've gone through this series so far, so I might as well stay to the very end.

Yes, we're in desperation stakes again. This almost has the feel of a lot scenes, bits, desperately pieced together. This pathetic excuse, (let's not even call it a movie) for a number three, sees Angel (played by yet another actress, then again, so are the Griswald kids) not a lawyer, a photographer now, who stumbles onto a story, that may'be hits too close to home, more so on a personal note, where she has tracked down her mother while working on a story, involving of course, prostitution. It isn't soon before she's butting heads with a cop (Roundtree, wasted again) while falling in love with guess who? Think back to General Hospital. We meet another cooky character, not seen in the last two Angels, who doubles as a clown and ice cream driver. Again the bold, brazen, and independent Angel, also learns she has a.... yeah, a sister, involved in.... yeah, prostitution. Her mother, an art collector, running a front for drugs is blown up, hence it's Angel on the revenge trail, while trying to rescue her younger hottie sister, who turns blinders to her. She goes undercover as a high class call girl, for a madam, played with convincing evil by Maud Adams (wasted, yes) while also getting into porn, and learning some ugly truths from other girls, soon to be escorted off to the real real slavery. Angel has a great line at the end when Nadine (Adams) gets locked in an ice cream truck, sopping with chocolate. If fans of the Angel series, apart from the nudity and hot broads in some lingerie, this one may run short of your expectations. But good news: There's a fourth.

My review was written in May 1988 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Third entry in New World's "Angel" series is a tired-blood melodrama about sisterly devotion. Prospects are extremely weak, even among devotees of the first two sexploitationers.

All-new cast (though several of the characters are the same) is headed by Mitzi Kapture as Angel, now a 26-year-old shutterbug in New York City, who recognizes her long-one mom Gloria (Anna Navarro) in a photo and tracks her to L. A. Mom reveals Angel has a 14-year-old sister, Michelle (Tawny Fere), who is involved with bad company. Mom is killed by a car bomb and Angel decides to go back out on the street as a fake prostitute to find sis and avenge her mom.

Baddies are led by Maud Adams, running a combo white slavery and drug smuggling ring. Padded film wallows (with too many in-jokes) in the world of porn filmmaking as Angel takes many risks en route to saving sis and a poorly staged shootout finale.

Kapture is miscast as Angel, playing it too hard-edged to generate any sympathy and Fere too mature and far from innocent-looking in the youngster role. Comedian Mark Blankfield gets no laughs (his dialog is awful) as Angel's stereotyped street-person friend, played as if written for Craig Russell in "Outrageous". Rest of the cast phones it in.

Technical credits are chintzy.

This third installment in the Angel franchise can be enjoyed as a stand-alone film.Molly Stewart who we have seen in two previous films as a teenager in high school and then as a college student in the second film now is an adult woman working as a photographer in New York.She goes back to Los Angeles when she discovers her long lost mother and finds out she has a half sister.It seems that her mother has become involved with international drug dealers who are holding her daughter hostage to force cooperation with them.When Molly's mother proves to be too troublesome she is killed.So Molly Stewart goes into her Angel persona to track down her mother's killers and find the lost half sister she discovered she has.

The movie is so over the top that it actually works as a low budget action exploitation film.

Lt. Andrews will be spinning in his grave: after rescuing Molly Stewart from a world of vice (in the original Angel) and financially supporting her through law school (in Avenging Angel, the second movie in the series), she decides to go to New York and become a blinking freelance photographer instead. Now there's gratitude for you!

But being a snapper doesn't prevent Molly (now played by Mitzi Kapture) from crossing paths with dangerous criminals: after realising that the L.A. art dealer in one of her photos is actually her estranged mother, who she hasn't seen since she was abandoned by her at the age of twelve, Molly returns to California in search of answers, only to find out that her mum is involved in a cocaine smuggling racket and her sister, of whose existence she was previously completely unaware, is in danger of being sold into white slavery. When her mother is killed in a car bomb, Molly once again adopts her Angel persona, entering the world of adult films to try and rescue the only family she has left from a lifetime of forced sex with sweaty foreigners.

Considering all of the trashy possibilities open to an exploitation film-maker by such sleazy subjects as prostitution, white slavery, drug dealing and the porn industry, Angel III is a very disappointing film. Sure, there's plenty of T&A on display (the first pair of bare knockers appears on screen within seconds, and the nudity continues throughout), but the pacing is dull, the direction uninspired, the story pedestrian and the less said about the acting the better. Plus, it's kinda ironic that of the three actresses to play Molly, the one with the name that sounds most like a genuine porn-star or hooker is actually the least sexy (yes, Mitzi Kapture is pretty, but she lacks either the jail-bait charm of Donna '25 going on 15' Wilkes, or the sheer va-va-voom of Betsy Russell).