Review: Avenging Angel

Betsy Russell plays Molly, who four years after the events of the first film is now studying to become a lawyer, when she hears that cop/paternal figure Lt. Andrews (Robert F. Lyons) has been killed. This motivates Molly to once again walk the streets as hooker Angel, to find his killers. Her other surviving surrogate family members are back; retired showbiz cowboy Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun), foul-mouthed lesbian Solly (Susan Tyrrell), and the Chaplin-esque street performer Yo-Yo Charlie (Stephen M. Porter). Ossie Davis (yes, the man who delivered Malcolm X’s eulogy) plays a police captain, Tim Rossovich (the poor man’s Brion James) is a thug, Robert Tessier (is a tattooist), and Liz Sheridan (Jerry! How could anybody not like you!) plays a sanatorium nurse.

 

Made a year after the original “Angel”, this 1985 sequel from director and co-writer Robert Vincent O’Neill (who made the original), is probably even worse. It’s certainly duller, and aside from the always fine Ossie Davis (!), the acting is worse, particularly lead actress Betsy Russell. Replacing original lead Donna Wilkes, Russell shows why she’s seriously one of the worst actresses of all-time. In her few moments of cuteness and sweetness she’s tolerable, but whenever she tries for seriousness, conviction, or toughness, she’s astoundingly bad. Watching her fail to act in a scene with the great Ossie Davis is particularly painful, and it’s interesting to note that she was as facially immobile in 1985 as she is today.

 

As was the case before, the mixture of gritty subject and sudsy treatment is an issue (Solly becomes surrogate mum to an abandoned baby in this one!), but the tone is a bit less uneven perhaps. In a weird way, I kinda miss the harsher stuff, and certainly this one has a lot less nudity. There’s just not enough sleaze, instead it focuses more on the goofy stuff that I hated in the original. Yes, Rory Calhoun’s character gives the film it’s only energy and amusement, but it also makes the film unrealistic and silly. I said last time that Calhoun looked like a senile old man wheeled out of the old folk’s home in his old costume, and put in front of the camera like in an Ed Wood film. Here he first appears getting busted out of a sanatorium. Close enough. Replacing Cliff Gorman as the paternal police officer this time is Robert F. Lyons, who looks and acts nothing like Gorman. He seems younger, for a start, and is pretty awful.

 

The villains are a step down from the creepy John Diehl from the original, I must say, but Ross Hagan isn’t too bad as the chief henchman. Credit where it’s due, though, the drag queens in this are a hundred times more convincing than Dick Shawn in the first film. But then, so is Dame Edna. Bizarre soundtrack featuring Bronski Beat and several tunes by our very own Split Enz (well, OK, New Zealand’s own, but we can still claim Crowded House, right?). Never thought I’d read the name Split Enz in the end credits to this. 

 

I can’t believe they made two more of these films after this one. Someone must be a fan (the original raked in over $20 million in the US), but why? This one is so awfully bloody redundant, with the only real differences being that Angel is now an almost Law School chick, and there’s a revenge motif. O’Neill co-wrote the screenplay with Joseph Michael Cala once again. Why didn’t somebody stop them?

 

Rating: D+