Angel of Death

Zoe Bell will never be the action star that Angelina Jolie is, but that shouldn't keep you from watching her in action.

She plays a mob hit-woman that has a change of heart after an on-the-job accident. She decides to get some justice for those she has wronged. I know, it sounds a little hokey, but no more that surviving a knife stuck in your skull.

There are a lot of fights here. Of course, Bell is the star and should win, but, come on, win a straight fight against someone twice her size> Well, that's what you pay your money to see, so that's what you get.

Will the Angel of Death return? They left the door open.

A small-budget exercise in what can be accomplished in on-line video, "Angel of Death" is startlingly effective as a full-length product.

Starring near-legendary stunt performer Zoe Bell ("Kill Bill," "Death Proof" and others), this action adventure never pulls its punches. Every shot hits - and some very bloody hits they are. It creates some of the same energy and electricity as "Wanted," with mordant humor and wonderful guest performances from brilliant mime Doug Jones (who created Abe Sapien in "Hellboy," the Silver Surfer and others) and the woman for whom Bell doubled for years, Lucy "Zena" Lawless.

Terrific editing suits Ed Brubaker's potboiler plot, with camera angles and scene framing joyfully celebrating the story's hard core comic book feel. Darrel Herbert's music is derivative but effectively enhances the over-the-top approach of the action.

To paraphrase Ordell Robbie, "When you absolutely, positively want to watch a warrior woman take out every m*-f* in the room," check out Zoe Bell as Eve. "Angel of Death" delivers the goods.

I realize that the whole idea for this movie comes from a comic book. Even so, in order to follow this film it requires a person to turn off his brain and accept some totally ridiculous scenarios. For example, the main character is an assassin by the name of "Eve" (played by Zoe Bell) who has a 6-inch knife embedded in her skull during an assassination attempt. She manages to complete her mission and stumbles out to a waiting get-away car all the same. She is taken to a mob doctor who performs the very delicate surgery by simply pulling the knife out by hand. She then recuperates for a few days and within no time is falling from a high-rise building onto a car and, apparently because there was another body underneath her to absorb the shock, gets up and walks away. Not long afterward she is involved in several fights which include having her head slammed repeatedly on a floor. All of this just after having a knife pulled from her brain. Yeah, right. At any rate, while there is plenty of action I would have preferred less quantity and more plausible quality. The characters were established well enough but the acting left much to be desired. Essentially, this is a film that has no humor and absolutely no realism. Everything hinges on hand-to-hand combat and even the pauses in between are only there to set the stage for the next violent sequence. No doubt there are some who enjoy this kind of movie and probably can't wait for the inevitable sequel or television series. Personally, it doesn't matter that much to me.

Ed Brubaker is a name to know in comics, but it should also be known in movies. Hopefully this will be a good calling card for him to get more work, or for more of his comics to reach the screen. While he's usually known for his spin on Captain America, he also has a series of hard-hitting hard-boiled comics called 'Criminal' (at the moment, I think, there's three volumes in all). Angel of Death follows along on the heels of those latter comics, and what he delivers here with this script is like an updating of a pulpy story that might have been found back in the 1950s put to film - only, of course, far less violent and expletive or on occasion trippy. It's like a Sin City yarn if it took itself not quite as much as a parody. And it works, mostly.

And another good thing about it, with its story about a hit-woman (Zoe Bell) who after getting a knife stabbed in her head and surviving- and becoming a loose cannon and seeing visions of a young girl she accidentally killed "telling her" to hit the entire mob organization around her- is that it leads on tough-movie dialog, kick-ass fight scenes and a really superb leading lady. Previously one could see Bell as a stunt-woman in Kill Bill or as herself, sorta, in Death Proof. But here she proves she can hold her own in dramatic scenes (maybe not quite her Uma Thurman counterpart but close enough) and seeing her fight is really extraordinary.

In fact, if you're just looking for a better-than-average direct-to-DVD action flick that chalks up a load of mob-movie/detective clichés, and don't know or care about Brubaker's name on the DVD, it's still worth watching. The fights are gritty and realistic, and the direction compliments these moments of torrid psycho-drama with Bell's knack for knocking someone's head in or any other kind of clever way of killing at a moment's notice. The film sometimes goes into a comic-book-panel kind of mis-en-scene, like if Zoe Bell's character is in a room walking around we'll see three different 'panels' of this. It's creative, if a little overused (and not so original if one's seen Ang Lee's Hulk). And, as a more obvious complaint, with the exception of Doug Jones and Lucy Lawless most of the cast is just 'meh', not terrible but nothing special.

But pick it up if you're roving around your video rental or if netflix gives the recommendation. You'll be surprised how much 78 minutes can go in delivering a hard-knock story of hard kills and harder consequences.

You know from the beginning this is not Quentin Tarantino nor is it trying to be , it's just a fun popcorn movie, but the main thing that ruins the movie is choosing a stunt woman as a lead actor. She just doesn't have the chops to pull this off. Even the third stringers out-act her here. She's not horrible, but she definitely can't pull off an ensemble part , and doesn't have one redeemable character trait she can use to make her character even slightly real. The movie is over the top violent and ridiculous, with a fun twist, but any other real actress would have solidified the movie. It has all the cliché elements you need for this type of flick, and good production values, but when the extra on the phone in the elevator delivers her lines better than the lead, there's a problem.