Messenger of Death (1988)

Wow! Such a good movie.

The Worst Film Ever

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Charles Bronson stars as Garret Smith, a crime reporter for the Denver Tribune. He learns of a horrifying incident, that of the massacre of a Mormon family. This sets off further sparks among two brothers who already have bad blood between them: fundamentalist preacher Willis Beecham (Jeff Corey) and farmer Zenas Beecham (John Ireland). After some digging around, Garret realizes that the two siblings are possibly being manipulated by some other party.As far as the Charles Bronson / director J. Lee Thompson / Cannon Group product goes, this isn't outright terrible, but it isn't as engrossing as their other sleazy offerings (especially "10 to Midnight" and "Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects"). Ultimately, the filmmaking / storytelling is pretty simplistic, which is a shame, as this look at a certain culture could have yielded more interesting results. Bronson plays a more upbeat character than usual, but Garret (or Garr, as friends call him) is still a typical Bronson bad ass who can hand others' asses to them without expending much energy himself. The opening set piece of the killing of innocent women and children is pretty chilling, and there's one action highlight of two big rigs sandwiching a truck in between them. But the ending is rather weak, wrapping up too quickly and producing little satisfaction.Bronsons' supporting cast is pretty damn good: Trish Van Devere, Laurence Luckinbill, Daniel Benzali, Charles Dierkop, Corey, Ireland, Gene Davis (Bronsons' nemesis in "10 to Midnight"), Jon Cedar, Tom Everett, Kimberly Beck, William Phipps. Van Devere is lovely and appealing, and Benzali is quite amusing as the police chief who's being promoted for a run for the mayors' office.At the very least, this offers some gorgeous scenery and a rousing music score by Robert O. Ragland.Six out of 10.

'Avenging Angels' or as it is known as elsewhere ' Messenger of Death' is a modestly entertaining Charles Bronson film which goes to show that the over the hill legend still has what it takes, The superbly photographed eerie opening see's Wifes and children of the Mormon household become victims of a massacre. Bronson is Journalist Smith who is out to investigate the gruesome case and and finds out about economic motives behind the murders. Mrs George C.Scott 'Trish Van Devere' also stars as does western legend Jeff Corey as a seedy Patriarch. John Ireland also co-stars. all in all it is an entertaining and well made 'B' movie from J.Lee Thompson 'The Guns of Naverone' 'Cape Fear'

Well, this doesn't mitigate the sump that Charles Bronson found himself in in the 1980s but at least it's a variation on his them of hard-boiled avenger. Here, he's an investigative reporter for a Denver newspaper. He only fires a gun once, and at an empty coffin. He gets to beat hell out of a scowling would-be assassin -- twice -- but the blood is minimal. He never wrenches off anyone's head with a wisecrack and pees down the neck cavity. That has to be a variation, right? The story is pretty simple. The women of a rural family in Colorado are slaughtered along with half a dozen young children by mysterious visitors. Bronson is on the case. The patriarch, luckily absent at the time of the shootings, leads Bronson to an angry fundamentalist Mormon of the John Brown type -- all bulging eyes, stentorian voice, and over-sized gestures. That would be Jeff Corey. The massacred family was part of Corey's flock. Corey blames his brother, a balding John Ireland, who runs a huge farm nearby. Bronson intervenes when the two feuding families begin to exchange shots but both Corey and Ireland are offed -- not by their opposing clans but by outside snipers on a distant hill. Something like that anyway. Who cares? It made no difference to the screenwriter.Those distant snipers, it turns out, represent the Colorado Water Company. Water is precious in them thar hills. There's plenty of water to drink but far more has to be shipped in at great expense to provide the six barrels of water that the shale company needs to produce one barrel of oil. Ireland's farm is sitting on top of a huge aquifer that would provide all the water for a pittance but Ireland has refused to sell. "This is our land. We live on it. It's our home," and so forth.Well, you see, the Colorado Water Company WANTS that land of Ireland. To them, it's an emerald isle. So someone is trying to start a feud between Corey's clan and Ireland's clan in hopes that, with the land passing into other hands, the Colorado Water Company can buy it up.But who's behind it all? Bronson, through his newspaper, knows some of Denver's elite, including the owners of the Water Company. You can tell they're the elite because, at parties, they wear tuxedos, sip champagne, and nibble canapés instead of wolfing down Rocky Mountain oysters after a shot and a beer. But, although the chief miscreants are somewhere among them, it's hard to tell just who they are. There's the ambitious Chief of Police running for mayor. There's Laurence Luckinbill as a good-natured pal of everybody. And there are the owners of Colorado Water, the husband who gave the company to his wife as a Christmas present, and the pretty wife who seems to know nothing about managing the company.The film is more of a mystery than an action movie, and that's rather refreshing in itself. I mean, imagine, Bronson only slugging a snarling heavy twice and shooting a gun only once. Still there's a nifty scene of Bronson and his colleague, Trish Vandevere, almost being squashed between two eighteen-wheeled tankers. It's a familiar crisis though. I always find myself wondering why the driver of the car doesn't just stop his vehicle and let the two trucks keep going.If you or I were to make a "Charles Bronson Movie", we might do it exactly the way that Golan/Globus did. You begin with a sloppy screenplay that ends with a ludicrous climax. And you hire a director and all the principal actors who are over the hill, just sitting around somewhere in Tonopah, Nevada, living off residuals. They don't have to act, anyway, just say their lines and move along. It doesn't matter if, like Charles Dierkop, the patriarch of the slaughtered family, you can hardly act at all. What difference does it make when you're given nothing but stilted lines that avoid contractions in order to sound some Biblical resonance -- "We did not ask you to come; we do not ask you to stay; it is the Lord's angels who will seek out vengeance." Mormons don't speak like that, not even the polygynous fundamentalists who lived in Short Creek, Arizona, fifty years ago. Nor do they call themselves "Mormons." That's a Gentile appellation. They are LDS to each other. On top of that, Mormon angels don't have wings, unlike those shown in this flick. I suppose the writers avoided setting the story in the location we'd have expected, Appalachia, because the stereotype had become too familiar. So they created a new set of stereotypes.I was glad that the film gave Bronson a chance to wash the gunpowder residue off his hands and that we get to see some of Colorado's magnificently chilly scenery -- but what a sloppy job by all concerned.

Messenger of Death gives us a fast-paced and very efficient directed action movie (Thompson cuts the crap and always is completely to the point) with Bronson in quite a different sort of role (as a matter of fact, he kills nobody in the movie even acts as peace-keeper in some way) playing a journalist from Denver. One wonders if Cannon were only interested in getting the video rented when they came up with this title, especially in the context of the poster. People who think that Bronson himself is the Messenger will be disappointed, people interested in a decent story will pass this on for all the wrong reasons. The music score is great, the plot-twist okay and the scenery makes for something completely different after seeing Charlie death-wishing in the Big City gutters. And before I forget : Bronson's side-kick is played by the beautiful and great actress Trish van Devere. I only remember her from a Columbo episode long, long ago. Wasn't that 'Make me a perfect Murder ?'