Angels Crest

Angel's Crest contains lots of pretty pictures with actors doing bland unmotivated performances. The director spent too much time perfecting the setting instead of working on developing the characters. It was just a lousy adaptation of the novel. Half of the supporting characters should have been left out, so they could have given the main characters something to do besides drinking, smoking, and slowly walking around. Law & Order episodes can do more in 44 minutes than this movie did in 2 hours. Jeremy Piven barely had time to do anything; it felt like he shot his part in two days or something. Lynn Collins was gross and not much else.

It's a pretty looking waste of time that didn't earn it's ending. A typical not-good-enough-for-a-real-release Magnolia presentation.

Didn't know the outcome but was hoping for redemption in this Alaska winter movie. It's got to be tough living those cold winters. Beside the slow pace, the bleakness didn't make for happiness. Added to that is the Hollywood requirement of a single blasphemy of Jesus whose love the movie could sure have used.

ANGELS CREST is not a perfect movie: there are so many undeveloped sidebars that keeping everyone in a place where they seem to fit into the tale is difficult. But there are some powerful performances here and some cause for reflection that makes the movie very worthwhile watching. Based on the novel by the same name written by Leslie Schwartz, adapted for the screen by Catherine Trieschmann, and directed by Gaby Dellal, the story deals with numerous interactions of a small town populated with alcoholics, drug abusers, adulterers, and other strange types and how they deal with a tragedy that makes no sense.

Nate Denton (Ameko Eks Mass Carroll) is a 3 year old son of Ethan Denton (Thomas Dekkar in a breakout performance that deserves attention) who awakens one morning in his pathetic home to tell his beloved single dad that it is snowing. The father/son bond is strong and Ethan dresses them both to go out to view the beauty of the snowy countryside in their old truck. When they arrive at a perfect spot, Ethan turns to the backseat to take Nate out to make snowmen, but Nate has fallen asleep in this safety car seat. Ethan makes the truck warm, locks the truck and walks out to view the spectacle of winter, the deer, and the eloquent mountains. In a few minutes he returns - and Nate is gone! Ethan is terrified, begins shouting his son's name as he searches for him. The town is alerted and a search party begins. Nate's mother alcoholic mother Cindy (Lynn Collins) is notified of Nate's missing and begins her tirade on every person she meets. After an overnight search for Nate, Ethan discovers Nate's frozen body and is devastated. Ethan is taken into custody for a death stemming from negligence and the townspeople form sides as to Ethan's guilt. Among them is a waitress Angie (Mira Sorvino) and her small daughter Rosie (Emma Macgillivray), Ethan's friend Rusty (Joseph Morgan), a lesbian couple (Elizabeth McGovern and Kate Walsh), Cindy's preachy mother (Barbara Williams). and the local police. The town brings in the District Attorney (Jeremy Piven) who obviously has secrets of his won that mirror Ethan's crisis. The story is resolved in a strange and tragic manner, leaving many crises unsolved.

Thomas Dekkar gives such a fine performance that we are able to see inside his heart and head and soul. The supporting cast conveys the small town response to a tragedy among their own - who is guilty of what and how could the incident have ever occurred. There are many ideas created by the writers and the characters that are never realized fully, but the sense of human response to an accident is staggeringly real. There is much more to this film in retrospect, after watching it, that haunts the viewer.

Grady Harp

Simple story with no twist or purpose really. Thousands of kids go missing every year and this story just reminds those families how easy it can happen. The film tells a simple tragic story with little to no entertainment value. Story line is thin, acting in most cases questionable and direction amateurish. Would we watch it again - No. Not retained for future viewing.

There is nothing challenging in the screenplay of this film, and the decision seems to have been taken to create a movie of a kind of easy access. It tries to treat a terrible occurrence in everyday lives, in a normal, small town community in those very terms, without making anything sensational.

The film deals with issues which are always relevant to so many people - loss, guilt, coping, addiction and, let me say kind of demonology perhaps in authority - in the most basic terms. Unlike similar kinds of films, this one never thinks it knows, never thinks it has to go beyond the fundamental realities of these situations in order to picture them well. For me, this leaves a lasting impression and means that I can think about these issues actually, much more easily than if I had not seen this film.

That's a rare occurrence in movies, to me. Usually I find that my mind is vacuumed by the end of a film, whether or not it was said to "deal with" issues or treat issues for discussion or awareness in the audience.

A nice, serious film which seems to present something of real life. Certainly of real life concerns, without patronising, feeling the need to suggest that life is more than life really is, nor getting lost in a fictional world of fantasies that have no real meaning for humans today.

There are twists, and the elements develop which allow the viewer to make conclusions for himself / herself. This then becomes the essence of this movie beyond the lovely cinematography, the latter becoming as an echo the expression of the ongoing, inexplicable beauty in life, a backdrop to the pain, struggles and torture.

Though the script is simple, with no pretensions or irrelevant ambitions, some viewers looking for something else may consider this a weakness in the film. For myself, it is a very strong point in a well crafted piece, from original idea, through very good, simple dramatic acting, to a full, beautiful, simple, understated presentation in the whole production.