Hey you, the person reading this review! May I ask you a question? Why haven't you written your own screenplay? I ask because there's no way you couldn't write something better than Avenging Angelo. If you never graduated from middle school, you could write a better movie than this. If you've never read anything more complex than a random issue of Highlights magazine, you could write something better than this. If your hands and your feet were cut off and you had to type out the script with your nose, you could still come up with something better than this putrid and cringeworthy piece of misbegotten guck.
I'm now going to describe to you the plot of Avenging Angelo but no matter how hard I try, I will fail to fully convey to you just how terribly written it is. I'd have better luck describing the Sistine Chapel to a blind man or sex to a 92 year old virgin. Anyway, here goes Angelo Allieghieri (Anthony Quinn) is a very old mobster. He's one of those kindly, gentlemanly mobsters who only exist in fiction. He's also one of those fictional mobsters who has vast sums of wealth without ever really doing anything. In fact, Angelo seems to have only one employee. That's his bodyguard, Frankie Delano (Sylvester Stallone). Now, here's where the story starts getting stupid and yes, the idiocy in this film does begin even before the open credits are finished. In fact, this is the only movie I've ever seen where you can literally tell that it's not worth watching as the opening credits roll. It seems Angelo gave up his daughter for adoption many years ago. He gave her to a nearby family, gave them enough money to make themselves rich and had Frankie watch out for her during her entire life, without the daughter ever knowing anything about it. Then one day, Angelo and Frankie go out to a restaurant to eat and Frankie leaves Angelo alone to go outside and talk a meter maid out of giving him a ticket. While Frankie does that, a mob hit-man named Bruno (Billy Gardell) walks up to Angelo and shoots him. Yeah, that's right. The bodyguard lets his mobster boss get killed while he's trying to sweet talk his way out of a parking ticket.
After his utter and complete failure, Frankie goes to visit Angelo's long lost daughter. Her name is Jennifer Barrett (Madeline Stowe) and she's just shipped her 7 year old son off to military school and chased her husband out of the house at gunpoint after catching him having sex with one of her friends. Frankie shows the overwrought and heavily drugged (I'm not even going to get into that) Jennifer a video recording of Angelo, explaining her true heritage. Frankie sets himself up as Jennifer's bodyguard. Why does she need a bodyguard? Because mob hit men are now trying to kill her (again, I'm not even going to get into it). While their dealing with that , we're supposed to see that Frankie's been in love with Jennifer since she was a young girl and she's falling for him, until another character who makes absolutely no sense at all comes between them and I think you can figure out what happens after that. Oh, and did I mention this is supposed to be a light-hearted comedy? When you watch Avenging Angelo, you'll feel sorry for the actors. Sure, they got paid but there's not enough money in the world to adequately compensate them for being associated with this embarrassment. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them suffer from Post Traumatic Street Disorder from their time on this film. You'll especially feel sad for Anthony Quinn and Madeline Stowe. This was Quinn's final film before he died and it is a tragedy for this garbage to be the capstone to his career. Stowe, for her part, tries so hard to carry this movie on her back. Her neurotic housewife turned mafia princess is the source of most of the story's humor and Stowe is not much of a comedienne at all. She tries to make Jennifer quirky and endearing and all she does is make her annoying.
You can't feel sorry for Stallone, however. He's made so many awful films, what's one more on his hellscape of a resume? He also got to work with Anthony Quinn and he got paid something to do virtually nothing in this movie. Frankie is the stoic, taciturn straight man in this supposed comedy. He's Abbot to Jennifer's Costello, George Burns to her Gracie, Ricky to her Lucy. While Stowe does almost everything she can to get a laugh except play a kazoo with her butt, Stallone mostly stands around with this moon-faced expression.
The most fun you can have watching Avenging Angelo is to totally disregard it as a movie and instead look at it as a low-budget cinema version of "Where's Waldo?" This was a cheaply made film and the cheapness shows up repeatedly on screen. You can make a little game out of how many instances you can spot something in the story that's only there because the producers couldn't afford to not have it there.
This movie sucks. Rent it at your own risk.
I'm now going to describe to you the plot of Avenging Angelo but no matter how hard I try, I will fail to fully convey to you just how terribly written it is. I'd have better luck describing the Sistine Chapel to a blind man or sex to a 92 year old virgin. Anyway, here goes Angelo Allieghieri (Anthony Quinn) is a very old mobster. He's one of those kindly, gentlemanly mobsters who only exist in fiction. He's also one of those fictional mobsters who has vast sums of wealth without ever really doing anything. In fact, Angelo seems to have only one employee. That's his bodyguard, Frankie Delano (Sylvester Stallone). Now, here's where the story starts getting stupid and yes, the idiocy in this film does begin even before the open credits are finished. In fact, this is the only movie I've ever seen where you can literally tell that it's not worth watching as the opening credits roll. It seems Angelo gave up his daughter for adoption many years ago. He gave her to a nearby family, gave them enough money to make themselves rich and had Frankie watch out for her during her entire life, without the daughter ever knowing anything about it. Then one day, Angelo and Frankie go out to a restaurant to eat and Frankie leaves Angelo alone to go outside and talk a meter maid out of giving him a ticket. While Frankie does that, a mob hit-man named Bruno (Billy Gardell) walks up to Angelo and shoots him. Yeah, that's right. The bodyguard lets his mobster boss get killed while he's trying to sweet talk his way out of a parking ticket.
After his utter and complete failure, Frankie goes to visit Angelo's long lost daughter. Her name is Jennifer Barrett (Madeline Stowe) and she's just shipped her 7 year old son off to military school and chased her husband out of the house at gunpoint after catching him having sex with one of her friends. Frankie shows the overwrought and heavily drugged (I'm not even going to get into that) Jennifer a video recording of Angelo, explaining her true heritage. Frankie sets himself up as Jennifer's bodyguard. Why does she need a bodyguard? Because mob hit men are now trying to kill her (again, I'm not even going to get into it). While their dealing with that , we're supposed to see that Frankie's been in love with Jennifer since she was a young girl and she's falling for him, until another character who makes absolutely no sense at all comes between them and I think you can figure out what happens after that. Oh, and did I mention this is supposed to be a light-hearted comedy? When you watch Avenging Angelo, you'll feel sorry for the actors. Sure, they got paid but there's not enough money in the world to adequately compensate them for being associated with this embarrassment. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them suffer from Post Traumatic Street Disorder from their time on this film. You'll especially feel sad for Anthony Quinn and Madeline Stowe. This was Quinn's final film before he died and it is a tragedy for this garbage to be the capstone to his career. Stowe, for her part, tries so hard to carry this movie on her back. Her neurotic housewife turned mafia princess is the source of most of the story's humor and Stowe is not much of a comedienne at all. She tries to make Jennifer quirky and endearing and all she does is make her annoying.
You can't feel sorry for Stallone, however. He's made so many awful films, what's one more on his hellscape of a resume? He also got to work with Anthony Quinn and he got paid something to do virtually nothing in this movie. Frankie is the stoic, taciturn straight man in this supposed comedy. He's Abbot to Jennifer's Costello, George Burns to her Gracie, Ricky to her Lucy. While Stowe does almost everything she can to get a laugh except play a kazoo with her butt, Stallone mostly stands around with this moon-faced expression.
The most fun you can have watching Avenging Angelo is to totally disregard it as a movie and instead look at it as a low-budget cinema version of "Where's Waldo?" This was a cheaply made film and the cheapness shows up repeatedly on screen. You can make a little game out of how many instances you can spot something in the story that's only there because the producers couldn't afford to not have it there.
This movie sucks. Rent it at your own risk.