OUTLAWS AND ANGELS – Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Almost everything about Outlaws and Angels is confident. The actors are confident in their roles, the script is confident in its ability to shock, and the practical effects work on screen (a lot of fake blood) is confident in its ability to spray and look good while doing so.

Outlaws and Angels follows three outlaws who come across a family’s secluded settlement, and the majority of the film takes place in the family’s house as the outlaws, and the family attempt to get along. As mentioned the actors, script, and effects feel very confident in themselves. The actors are playing stock types of characters, but Outlaws and Angels is a bloody, nasty little movie, so the actors get to make the types their own. Francesca Eastwood (Yes, she’s the daughter of Clint) creates a perfectly unsubtle performance as Florence. As the story continues and twists Eastwood is the only thing keeping it grounded its own unhinged nature. As for the others, the heavy themes don’t require much in the way of special characterizations, so the performances end up feeling familiar but still arresting.

The script is extremely tense, and the places that it goes are surprisingly ghastly. The eventual reveals are shocking and suggest a worldview that everyone is deeply bad or at the very least corrupted. Some will probably have a problem with the places that Outlaws goes, but the sheer shock of it only bolsters the drama that is present in the film. The third act is foggy though as the character motivations soon become less understandable , almost  as if the movies just running out the clock following the garish displays of act two.

The use of practical effects brings to mind that the gory work of Sergio Leone Westerns, and the more recent Tarantino films, and it’s enthralling to see such incredibly bloody effects used in more than just a Tarantino movie.Unfortunately, the direction of Outlaws and Angels doesn’t feel quite as confident. At times it reaches the level of brilliance that the Coens and Tarantino achieved in their Westerns, but much of the time it falls short due to one aspect of filmmaking. The use of the handheld camera. The middle act is an intense verbal standoff between the outlaws and the family. This section of the film brings to mind Tarantino’s own The Hateful Eight in not only the isolated location and heavy use of dialogue, but also the conclusion. What differentiates it from the power that Eight holds though is that it’s less deliberate in its cutting and music. The handheld quick zooms, and shake effects during the conversation are certainly there to make the talk more intense, but almost do the opposite effect. Since the camera moves the same way during the entire conversation nothing is revealed about the characters through cinematography, and the tension of the scene collapses. This is odd because when the shooting style isn’t doing this director J.T. Molner creates some startlingly beautiful and brutal scenes with this style. A slow-motion killing scene involving the splatter of blood is beautifully composed. The other fault comes in the music used in the film. While certainly well composed, the music seems to play over some scenes that with silence could have held a thick air of suspense, but are drained of it by the presence of music.

There’s enough here though that makes the film shocking and entertaining. Those who have a problem with the more sadistic violence that the film uses, and the darker themes may not find enjoyment in it, but those who can find the violent and deeply disturbing story and themes cathartic will find the film a confident if oddly directed film.