Outlaws and Angels (2016)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

People are voting emotionally.

Good concept, poorly executed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

OUTLAWS AND ANGELS is a recent western that seems to have been inspired by Tarantino's THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Like that film, the setting is a single building where a God-fearing family are assailed by a group of bandits with murder and more in mind. A film like this only succeeds if the script is a real zinger, but sadly the script here is pedestrian at best. It goes for a psychological approach with a number of character intricacies and sexual aspects, but it feels trite and pseudo-intellectual as a result. There's no suspense of any kind and some stark moments of shocking violence don't amount to much. The whole thing is also way overlong. The film is full of familiar faces but only Francesca Eastwood really stands out; the rest seem bored by the whole experience.

Criminales e Angelis! That might as well have been the name of this film that oddly pays homage to the classic Spaghetti Westerns. Unsavoury characters, ultra violence, twisty plot, offensive scenes it had it all. You couldn't like any of these people. Even the supposed lawmen were unsavoury. One almost expected everyone in the film to be dubbed except for a few main characters. Dubbing might have helped (or subtitles) as it seemed that almost everyone mumbled but you got the drift. A band of outlaws (criminales) rob a bank in some dusty unnamed western town complete with hoods. Innocent people get killed (they are just bystanders after all). They escape but one of them is hit as they leave town. From there on its a rough ride as they wind up holing up with a christian family and everything becomes twisty, and ugly with gore and scenes enough to make you cringe. But the sets are great and the feel of being trapped in a place with a band of outlaws, a screaming christian mother and the very unsavoury minister of a father with their two daughters. To give it even better feel of a being a spaghetti western there is the Clint Eastwood connection. Clint's former live-in Francis Fisher plays a somewhat hysteric christian woman while the daughter of Clint's and Francis's years together Francesca Eastwood is the the Angeli of the title. And what an Angeli she makes. Francis Fisher also played Ruth Dewitt Bukater, Rose's mother in Titanic and Strawberry Alice in Eastwood's Unforgiven.As gore piles upon gore and cringing scenes pile on cringing scenes and the body count rises one is reminded that others can do what Tarantino and Peckinpah have done before. You can't like any these characters but you do admire the way the actors play them making it all seem too real. Just like the old spaghetti westerns.

Now you might wonder why I'm calling it a bad pizza, that's because no matter how bad a pizza might be, I'll always take a slice. That's what I did with this movie. Now the slice might not be good but hey at least I GOT a slice..Now applying my Pizza philosophy here: The 'slice' being, it's a damn good story. A twisted western. Loved every part of the story. Hats off to the writer and the person that came up with the idea. I'll give credit to JT Mollner there.Now about the pizza: The director was absolutely horrible. The weird zooms. what the heck was that. Completely unnecessary. The editing had it's flaws too, picked out some mistakes as well but assuming that the editors had to work with what the director gave them, I don't blame 'em. The acting was mediocre at it's best. The only actors that stood out as actually decent was the female lead Flo (Francesca Eastwood) and her mother, Ada (Teri Polo). Rest all were mediocre. And finally, Luke Wilson. How the hell did this guy become an actor??! He was horrible the first time I saw him in Idiocracy (2006) Although I thought that movie had potential. His southern accent (I assume) sounds like a HORRIBLE impression of Owen Wilson. All he had to do was say 'Wooow'. Honestly I could go on ranting about this movie, the unnecessary scenes, amateur camera work. Just because you're on a budget doesn't mean you do a bad job. You can find people who have lower budget make YouTube videos a millions times better with better actors. Should you order the pizza in the first place? If you got time to kill and have nothing better to do, and I mean absolutely nothing, then go for it sure, watch it. BUT if you're looking for something entertaining and you don't watch a lot of movies then I'd skip it

I really enjoyed this movie!!... Loved all the twists it had. Also this really reminded me of a Quentin Tarantino movie.... Great Movie all the way!!!.I would Love to see more movies like this where the twists comes in.. I always know what's going to happen before it happens on most movies I watch, but this one kept me guessing and also kept me very interested. .