It’s great to see a film shot and projected on film at Sundance. Too bad they didn’t know how to record sound. Half the locations drown out the actors and the score sounds like it was recorded on a boom box, it’s so blown out and distorted. That’s just one of the technically incompetent, amateurish aspects of Outlaws and Angels.
A gang of outlaws led by Henry (Chad Michael Murray) invade the home of bible thumping matriarch Ada (Teri Polo), her husband George (Ben BrowdeR) and daughters Florence (Francesca Eastwood) and Charlotte (Madisen Beaty). A lawman (Luke Wilson) is on the hunt but he won’t get there before the outlaws traumatized this family.
The 35mm film can’t hide that all the actors look like they’re in a Frontier Town theme park. Most are doing caricature western prospector accents. Wilson is saddled with lines like, “come out slow-like” and “That’s what you get for talking out your neck, you yellow scamp.” A cameo player as an abusive husband clearly does not make contact when he slaps his wife, twice.
The outlaws spend the night making cheap sexual threats on the daughters. Rape is portrayed several times for shock value, or one time in the case of a revenge re-rape for comedy. Ridiculous scenes like a protracted disrobing by Murray rob the villains of any menace. There are a few genuine shocks but the film has so failed to create a reality or the old west into which to buy. The kills are bloody, I’ll give them that.
Director JT Mollner and cinematographer Matthew Irving go overboard on zoom lenses in every scene. If Sergio Leone were still here to see this, he’d say, “Settle down, dudes.” They do Leone freeze frame opening titles too, but they only show the same thing over and over. It’s a guy in a mask from this angle, and that angle, and another angle!
Congratulations on getting this first feature into the Sundance Film Festival. I think it was a mistake to submit it though because it’s not ready. Now one of the largest audiences of decision makers in the industry has seen what looks like an unfinished student film.