This week, Angel Studios recognized they could make a film with “Angel” right in the title, thus joining such great works as ”Skydances with Wolves”, “A24 Angry Men”, and “Don’t Tase Me, Warner Bros.” What Angel Studios should have learned with their remake of Angel and the Badman is that name recognition isn’t half as important as proper casting. i.e. Just because Zachary Levi can act in your film doesn’t mean he ought to act in your film.
The good news is Tom Selleck is probably no longer the automatic response to “worst actor to star as the hero in a Western.” Because of the gross miscasting errors in this film, I wasn’t exactly sure who was “Angel” or who was “Badman” in Angel and the Badman, although I do have some guesses based on the original film. In this version, Levi stars as legendary outlaw gunfighter “Quirt,” which I believe is also a unit of measurement in Australia. Levi is asked to pull this off even though he had trouble pulling off “unexpected hero” in Shazam! Fury of the Gods.
Quirt stumbles upon a widow whose prudishness is mistaken for allure (you can see my eyes rolling from here, right?), and yet his past is catching up with him in the form of dying villain Laredo (Neal McDonough) and the local Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones). McDonough and Jones are both more suited to the feel of a western; the problem is they’re both far too old for their roles. 80-year-old sheriffs and 60-year-old gun fighters wouldn’t exist in the Old West for very obvious reasons. And it’s not just that; they LOOK old. I was kinda worried for the widow when Laredo and his gang took over her house, but then I remembered 1) Laredo’s gang is two pathetic idiots and 2) Laredo is likelier to appear in a Cialis commercial than getting into the business of rapin’ and pillagin’.
The MacGuffin in the film is a small chest of Confederate gold hidden by Quirt and sought by Laredo. I’m not sure what a man who is less than one season away from death’s door would need with a treasure chest. Will his posse not get his pension after death? Awww. I have even less idea why a man like that would be willing to kill for such. But if he isn’t, there is no plot. And 
all of this hinges on the belief that Quirt is some badass capable of changing the fortunes of an entire town. Pardon me if I scoff. Zachary Levi seemed hardly able to change the fortunes of a Purple Crayon.
We saw a lot of this when Tyler Perry was starting out – he just couldn’t attract genuine talent for a while. Hence, when he did, he used it no matter how ill-fitting it was. McDonough is an Angel Studios homie; he’s gonna be in all their films, like it or not. I’m saddened by Levi and Jones being attracted to the Angel formula, but amused by how poorly they’re used. Angel and the Badman is a huge miscast in the round, but even if you believe everything you see, it is still a very tepid western. The villain is a 60-year-old man dying of TB? Why don’t you just wait him out?
Oh, and I am so amused by the moment where Quint forces the neighbor rancher to share his water. “Sharing your resources?!” That sounds like socialism, fellas. This studio was founded on modern American Christianity, dammit! Socialism is … I dunno , Communism! Isn’t that what you jokers preach? Don’t you subscribe to the teachings of Republican Jesus? Your Jesus ain’t gonna like that. Not one little bit.
There once was a gunfighter named Quint
His reputation carried him for a stint
The baddies all feared
The commoners endeared
You could see it if maybe you squint
Rated PG-13, 98 Minutes
Director: Julio Quintana
Writer: Kevin M. Townsend, Christopher Tuffin, Jaime Hernandez
Genre: Casting disasters
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: If you can buy 80-year-old Tommy Lee Jones as a Western sheriff, well I guess you’ll but anything
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Sure, the film is miscast, but it wasn’t exactly winning awards when it wasn’t”
