Outlaws and Angels

The present movie is the final elaboration of a shorter piece called 'Henry John and the Little Bug', released about seven years ago by the same Author, JT Mollner, a peculiar kind of film maker.

The final full-length result is peculiar too, but very well acted and very well written. It deals with miserable beings living miserable lives and is a paradigmatic story of how misery, love and egoism can bring anyone to perdition, given the wrong circumstances.

There isn't much pity in Author's heart for his own characters and not many of them will make it through the end. But there is love, as in any great artist's eye, even though of a strange and desperate sort.

Besides writer/director JT Mollner deciding to create his own unique vision of a western where the three fugitive bank robbers hold a preacher named George Tildon (Ben Browder), his wife Ada (Teri Polo) and two daughters hostage the bank robbers have a continuing dwindling posse chasing them and the story just gets weirder and weirder.

The posse chasing the bank robbers is led by Josiah (Luke Wilson) who tries to lead his posse through intimidation and with idle threats but quite frankly he cannot even protect himself from of all people, the preachers half dead wife? Then there is the leader of the bank robbers named Henry (played by Chad Michael Murray) who takes a shining to the preacher's youngest daughter Florence Tildon (Francesca Eastwood) who has some secrets she wants to share with Henry.

In other real suspense films, the director/editor will purposely lower the actors voice so as to hold the audience's attention but this director, JT Mollner took this approach to extreme with his star Henry (Chad Michael Murray). Not only does Henry's voice come to almost a whisper, he mumbles most of his dialogue such that I thought the film would need to include sub titles because the quiet language Henry was whispering/mumbling was certainly not English no matter how many times I attempted to rewind what the heck he was mumbling.

If you enjoy seeing faces and heads being riddled with bullets and brain matter landing on the shooters own face then maybe you could be remotely satisfied. Or maybe incest, or male on male anal sex is your thing, then this film may appeal to you. I found it disgusting for a western and I do not object to violence just to sensationalism for garnering false attention. The dialogue was also very boring and extremely slow moving but I still hung in there which is why I did not rate the film any lower than a 4 out of 10. At least the ending was a bit of a surprise which I will not divulge so that you can also sit through the entire film and see if you agree or disagree with my review.

This film follows a group of bank robbers, a posse chasing them and a family whose home the robbers invade.

Without giving spoilers, this has a decent story to it but you need to be a real trooper to make it to the end. The pace of this is painfully slow. I don't know, maybe the slow pace is meant to convey a psychological theme. It didn't work for me though because even if that was the case, it still could've moved along better. I liked the story and hated the pace.

An excellent low budget western, shot in the style of your favourite 70's westerns. I can't believe some of the negative reviews. It is well acted, well shot with some great thoughtful moments and has a nice flowing style with a few twists and turns. I really enjoyed this film leading up to a great last half hour.

It helps being a huge fan of westerns but I think some reviewers think the western starts and finishes with the Hateful Eight.

This film deserves more than 5.4. If you are a fan of westerns check it out. If you are 16 years of age move on,,

Can't wait to see more from this writer director.

In the New Mexico Territory, a gang of bank robbers holds up at the parsonage of a minister & his family as a posse tries to catch up with them. Even if the thugs make it to Mexico, who will survive?

"Outlaws and Angels" (2016) is cut from the same cloth as Tarantino Westerns "Django Unchained" (2012) and "The Hateful Eight" (2015), but with even less of a budget than "Bone Tomahawk" (2015), amazingly only costing $1,150,000. I say "amazingly" because the production values are quite good. In other words, the writer/director knew what he was doing.

The people look and talk like folks living in the challenging desert wilderness of the Old West, which harkens back to the ugly depiction of the Old West in "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid" (1972) and "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" (1973). Meanwhile the plot is as old as Westerns like "Rawhide" (1951).

This is an interesting morality tale that covers everything from greed, lust, drunkard-ness, cowardly condoning, envy, hate and murder. It's not "anti-Christian," as some devout people have claimed in knee-jerk fashion. Rather, it's anti-hypocrisy. When parents don't live according to their own Judeo-Christian values they become fakes, which naturally causes rebellion in the kids.

The beautiful Francesca Eastwood is a highlight with Madisen Beaty and Teri Polo being effective. Chad Michael Murray, Luke Wilson and the other three male actors in the main cast are well cast and convincing.

Unfortunately, it's all brought down by unnecessary scenes that pad the runtime, not to mention wallow in gross depravity for no ostensibly reason. For instance, the puke-inducing jack-someone-off sequence and the perverted nod to "Deliverance" (1972). I thought this was a Western, not a sick porn flick?

"Less is more" is a proverb for good reason.

The film runs 2 hours and was shot in Santa Fe and Albuquerque in north-central New Mexico.

GRADE: C-/D+