Avenging Angelo (2002)

Avenging Angelo went straight to DVD in the US which sadly seems about right. This has the feel of a movie of the week with a predictable plot, ridiculous dialogue and just dumb situations. Its also full of mistakes, or liberties taken where we are just meant to go with it in a slap-sticky comedy sort of way which includes fart jokes from dead bodies.That being said, if you can bear with it this is the last film from the great Anthony Quinn. He plays aging Mafia Godfather Angelo, trying to make amends with the daughter he gave up as a baby to protect. Sylvester Stallone is Frankie, his loyal bodyguard who has been watching and keeping Jennifer safe throughout her life, he is (of course) also in love with her. When Angelo is murdered Frankie tells his daughter the truth, she in turn decides to avenge her father's death with a very limited understanding of "whacking" protocol.I will say that Stallone does a good job with the material given. He doesn't have much to work with here and you have to give him credit for continually trying to break free of the action genre, even if it just doesn't work for him.I'm also a fan of Madeline Stowe and while definitely beautiful, her character is so annoying here that she's just painful to watch. The soundtrack is also terrible and there are weird fantasy romantic montages sequences that look like romance novel covers. Whatever they were meant to be they didn't work.All in this was a struggle to get through only endurable thanks to Stallone. 4/19/16

In my book a 1 star is for the worst of the worst - like "The Room". This isn't quite that bad. But it's pretty bad.The thing is, it could have been good. If it had made up its mind to either be a comedy or a drama. But trying to be both it fails miserably. There's no laugh...at all. Any attempt at comedy ranges from flat to annoying. If that isn't bad enough, they attempt to recycle the dumb jokes that didn't work the first time. There's an on going schtick about Frankie's cologne, Brut. Like anyone besides Joe Namath ever really wore that stuff. The joke never works. Not the first time. Not the third time.Frankie has to get rid of a body. We don't know if the body is dead or just unconscious. Until the body farts...three separate times. "Frankie, did you say something?" Yeah, hilarious.The saddest part of all this is that the director, Martyn Burke, wrote Top Secret, one of the funniest movies of all time. How he could miss so badly with this movie I'll never understand.Now, if this had been written as a drama, with action scenes, a little love story, not too over the top, it might have worked. It could have been good. As long as Madeleine Stowe's character was maybe only slightly annoying instead of completely over the top. Why Frankie hasn't shot her yet I have no idea.The writing is atrocious. Nothing makes any sense. Angelo thinks something might happen to him, but Frankie leaves him unprotected in the restaurant to go deal with a parking ticket. Jennifer lives in this enormous mansion that has no security system whatsoever. Bad guys and ex-husbands come and go at all hours of the night. She's "terrified" but goes out at night to the guest house to have a conversation about nothing.It's not like Stallone and Stowe have no chemistry together, but it isn't allowed to develop because her character is so annoying. I'm 48 minutes into it hoping against hope that it will get better.

This is the last film of actor Anthony Quinn after a career of 60 years in cinema with more than 150 appearances and half dozen Academy awards. He holds the record of longest active professional life in Hollywood though somebody lived longer but were not active. Paradoxically, I myself consider Anthony Quinn a man with little cinematographic talent and yet he participate in so many films that I love - favorite movies. This is rare phenomenon in art, showing how film industry acts as a monopoly where success is in no way dependent on a single person but is aggregate (or macro) from the efforts of a collective. That's nothing new under the sun.I want to correspond here my overall impressions from actor Anthony Quinn and not about the real life man since there are other people to judge him. Quinn wrote himself a biography in 1972 which shows that obviously he wasn't well aware of his future. But he always had around him a staff of fully functional intelligent men that were ready to delve with his minutest problems fee-for-service. The sometimes sickening and bad image on screen is always compensated with next following that looks good and convincing. That means that there were always paid people around to heed. Because Anthony Quinn had so many hidden personalities that were product of nearby consultants I see that man not as a unity but as 10 people playing simultaneously. As if I see a Turkish sultan carried over by his servants and yet he is impressive and untouchable.To tell the truth since I consider him a bad actor it remains consequently that only his remarkable physique carried his performances for so long. Evidently that physique of a heavyweight boxing champion was enough argument for producers and directors to employ him. This seems to have its logical explanation since Hollywood didn't have the habit to recruit Black Americans in leading roles until mid 1950s. And from anthropological view of point Negroes in America are the largest reservoir of physical sturdiness and fitness. I am not talking here about issues of racism and things before the great Civil War which seem to be still alive in America and abroad.I want to pool out for our host here some of my best choices from Anthony Quinn's long film list - certainly, "25th Hour" (1967), "Lion of the Desert" (1981), "High Risk" (1981), "Revenge" (1990) but also other movies that I watched as a youth and liked very much. As conclusion, I want to say to the people reading here never to compare outwardly Anthony Quinn with his corollary Marlon Brando - those are two separate entities staying on opposite poles of the human continuum. Thank You!

When I looked at other people opinion about this movie I thought that I'm about to look some stupid and dull action movie.Again I was surprised."Avenging Angelo" is a action comedy and every other genre wouldn't fit to this one.This movie is special because of few things.First, this is a last movie of legendary actor Anthony Quinn.Second,I liked Stallone's part in this movie.Lots of people didn't like his comedy "Oscar" but I think that was a great and funny movie."Avenging Angelo" is a bit similar to "Oscar" because Sly is connected to mafia in both films.This movie has some funny scenes but problem is always ending.Ending is the most important part in this kind of movie and lots of them aren't too good.This one is predictable like the others and if you can close your eyes on that part,you will see that this movie isn't that bad.It's OK and that's it.Sly is good in this one but his role in "Oscar" was much better too me.Madeleine Stowe is good and I like her and I think with death of Mr.Quinn world of movies lost another great actor.This movie is also for him."Avenging Angelo" has it's good and bad sides but I think that first people should take a look and then create their opinion.Also I have to say that a man in charge for music in this movie is another legend - Jon Bon Jovi.