Cowboys & Angels

This breezy comedy-drama marks an assured feature film debut for David Gleeson, who traces his interest in film back to his childhood in the Co. Limerick village of Cappamore, where his father ran the local cinema. Set in present-day Limerick City, his film stars Michael Legge, who played the teenaged Frank McCourt in Angela's Ashes, but it offers a very different view of the city to the rain-sodden misery of McCourt's early life - and to its Stab City image as the alternative murder capital of Ireland.

The emphasis of this warm, engaging movie is on the friendship that develops between two young men who agree to share an apartment for economic reasons. Shane (Legge) is a shy with girls and already bored with his job as a civil servant, and Vincent (Allan Leech) is a flamboyantly dressed, openly gay fashion design student. Shane's journey of self-discovery is charted with wit and insight in Gleeson's sweet-natured movie, which neatly resolves the potentially awkward moral dilemmas it raises. There is an appealingly natural chemistry between the charming lead actors, and a touching portrayal of a disillusioned older civil servant by Frank Kelly.

cute actors. moral lessons. eulogy to friendship. the wrong way of the shy and naif good boy, not real different by Pinocchio. a beautiful film. or, more exactly, a reasonable good film. who seems say everything. about all. and the choices to explore different circles of life is not real inspired. but the final, like in many similar cases, seems save the errors and the large dose of good and ambitious intentions. result - a nice story about the courage to become yourself. nothing new. maybe, too familiar. but useful as one of stories who seems be a chain of scenes discovered by a stranger on the window to street, in the evening.

I've just watched this film and I' surprised to find it was released in 2003. While watching it (before knowing the release date) I felt I was watching something out of the 1980s. Even though it may be contemporary, this film already has something "aged" about it. Its not exactly hackneyed, but there is something about the young people and the way they talk and act (and what they wear) that feels dated already. What especially struck me were the hairstyles and the clothing, some of the expressions and some of the mock innocence. These feel just too good, to tame, or too "innocent" to be credible in a movie in the 21st Century. The usual moral story, one supposes, and this time around just a bit too heavy-handed for my own personal taste. The stated gay interest or gay angle is very oblique.

Although it sounds like the premise for a formulaic sitcom, Cowboys and Angels turns out to be something entirely different. This big-hearted crowd pleaser, written and directed by David Gleeson, centers on Shane (Michael Legge), a lonely 20-year-old misfit who moves to the big city and takes on a gay roommate, fashion-design student Victor (Allen Leech).

After some queer-eye advice from the popular, outgoing Victor (new haircut, new wardrobe, new attitude), Shane begins to emerge from his shell. But an incidental friendship with the drug dealer who lives downstairs threatens to wreck his life just as it is beginning to come together.

Refreshingly, Cowboys and Angels uses its characters as people, not types, on its way to detailing Shane's gradual coming-of-age. Even with its brief running time, the movie feels slight and padded: The story technically ends 10 minutes before the movie does. But the lack of the expected gay-straight clichés puts you in a forgiving mood, and Gleeson's upbeat, humanist approach takes care of the rest.

Two Irish lads move in together. Vincent is a well-balanced gay art student and Shane is a sheltered and shy civil servant. Through a makeover a la "Queer Eye," Vincent helps Shane gain self-confidence. Unfortunately, Shane falls into the wrong crowd and starts trafficking drugs.

Is this a makeover movie (complete with themes about being true to yourself) or a movie about the Irish drug scene? It tries to be both, but it never finds a good balance. It ultimately strives to be about the relationship between the two young men, but it never really succeeds because the relationship is never fully developed for the viewer. This problem could have been easily avoided--two very endearing deleted scenes should have been kept in the film for sure. There are some random scenes that seem to come out of nowhere, but it all pieces together nicely (perhaps too nicely) in the end. The lead character does some awful things, like being part of a hit and run where a woman is terribly injured and a man is severely beaten when trying to call the cops, but in the end it is all okay because he's a likable guy with a fabulous gay roommate who has unexpectedly got the hook-up. Oh, please. Still, the overall theme of being yourself and true to yourself is great, even if the movie goes about expressing it in a half-assed way. And both lead actors are irresistibly cute.