Avenging Angel

Plot synopsis:
A minister (Kevin Sorbo) loses his wife and daughter to a greedy land-owner "The Colonel" (Wings Hauser). Following his wife's admonition to never seek vengeance, he instead becomes a bounty hunter. When he admonishes a rough-neck about his treatment of a floozy in the bar, the bad guy and his two friends, allied with The Colonel, give him a beating and toss him in the street.The Preacher is taken in by Maggie (Cynthia Watros), a woman with "a past" and a child. He stays in town after she offers to rent him her extra room, but she insists he give up his gun while at her home.The local sheriff, on The Colonel's payroll, is meanwhile trying to run some religious "squatters" off land they say they paid him for fair and square. The Sheriff's hirelings intimidate the squatters, roughing up several members. The Preacher learns of the Sheriff's and The Colonel's actions, and visits The Squatters led by Elijah (Jim Haynie). They tell him they paid for the land but never got the deed. A few days later the Sheriff's hirelings burn down a few of the Squatter's tents and during the raid kill Elijah.Neutral up to this point, The Preacher goes with the Sheriff to visit The Colonel. The Colonel tells The Preacher that his best characteristic is his greed. The Preacher turns down the offer of Cognac and leaves precipitously.Growing suspicious of The Preacher and his unstated alliances, the Sheriff sends three of his hirelings to send a message to The Preacher by roughing up Maggie. Still unarmed, he catches them in the act and reminds them how they ought to treat a woman. One of the bad guys catches The Preacher up close with his six-shooter; The Preacher turns that fellow's gun against one of his cohorts, who shoot each other, and Maggie nails the third fellow with a 2x4.The Sheriff arrives just in time to see the results. Maggie gives The Preacher his gun back, and he sets out to visit the Squatters. The Sheriff and a number of henchmen show up, set to run the Squatters out one last time. The Preacher, now armed, greets them. He tells the Sheriff that the (unarmed) Squatters have a right to stay. In the confrontation, with all of the bad guys' guns drawn, The Preacher shoots the sheriff. The rest of the bad guys meekly leave.The Preacher then pays a visit to the Colonel, from whom he obtains the deed for the Squatter's land. As he turns to leave, having satisfied his purpose for the visit, the Colonel tries to shoot The Preacher, who is quicker and kills the Colonel first. The Preacher returns to Maggie and her daughter.

Tags: revenge

Review:
Not bad even if you have seen it before.
I will agree that Kevin Sorbo has come into his own in the acting arena.
He is quite the leading man in the made for television romance field.
He does well with the material.
In fact everyone one in the film did well with what they had.
Cynthia Watros is lovely as usual as the ever present whore with the heart of gold.
Nick Chinlund is always good whether he plays good guy or bad guy and what can you say about Wings Hauser.
He is always wonderfully psychotic even if he is playing it low key.
I got a little annoyed at the dialog between the male and female leads, they just did not have enough together time for me to believe that they were made for each other in that redeemed way these films have.
All in all an OK way to spend 2 hours..
God's Gun. Preacher Kevin Sorbo's family is killed by evil town boss Wings Hauser's hired goons, after a family of homesteaders take refuge in his church.
Not wanting to soil their memory by seeking vengeance, he instead becomes a bounty hunter in order to sate his desire for revenge, that is until he finds a real reason to take on the despicable Hauser and his villainous cronies.A religion friendly movie, this is a bit familiar but it's well written with lots of comic book style action.
Sorbo is surprisingly good as a western hero and Hauser is great too as an urbane, educated heavy.In all, Avenging Angel is quite enjoyable but the climax is a little too tame.
The final scene between Hauser and Sorbo is good though..
Standing Ovation for Avenging Angel!!.
All the stars in the universe, could not fill my living room space for what I think of the movie!!
I cried and cried and applauded over just how beautiful Kevin Sorbo's performance was in his first western role!!
He gave an outstanding performance!!!
His ability to clearly define the inner conflict of his character was visibly reflected on the emotions he showed throughout the film, it was extremely well done on his part to show the gentle wonderful sensitive loving servant of God and the man torn between love, hate and sorrow and the need to seek vengeance and justice!!
In the end Justice and Love prevailed.Throughout the movie, we watch this man struggle to come to terms of what he has done and what he promised his wife to become!!
Sam Jenkins Sorbo was amazing in the opening scene with her husband, the two of them have a deep love and respect for each others work and it clearly shows!!
The entire cast of the movie was incredible, great directing and photography, outstanding work from the entire production because they truly delivered in fine HALLMARK style!!!
What a great honor to have ownership of this movie along with the rest of my new Sorbo movie collection!!
I simply love them all, and each one of them has touched me in a very very big way!!!
I adored little actress, Joey King (Amelia), she played the perfect angel in the entire movie!!
Her mother played by actress Cynthia Watros (Maggie) was perfectly suitable for the role, fell in love with her character at first sight!!
She was brilliant in letting us see just how hard her life has been and just her grace and beauty it was absolutely gorgeous and stunning performance by her!!
Kevin Sorbo is so right on the money because there were two instances where you just want him to kiss her, its clear that a relationship was developing but yet you just knew that the kiss was going to happen eventually and that little girl Amelia running to Kevin in the last scene just stole my heart away!!
Congratulations Kevin.........this was definitely without a doubt a Winner for me!!
It was highly recommended to me and I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves a great western adventure and who love and value honor and strong passionate characters in heroes who never lets a bad deed go unpunished!!.
Preacher/Bounty Hunter.
Kevin Sorbo borrows quite a bit from Clint Eastwood's classic High Plains Drifter in this rather incredulous western where he gets to play The Avenging Angel.
Kevin's apparently trying very hard to get away from being typecast as Hercules because there's not a scene in this film with his shirt off.What we're asked to believe here is that the local Ponderosa owner Wings Hauser has sold off pieces of his real estate giving no bill of sale and then just killing them if they don't get off his land.
Now he has this group of pacifist type settlers led by Jim Haynie and son Richard Lee Jackson and if a group ever needed protection this one does.Enter Kevin Sorbo whose church was dynamited and his wife and daughter killed by Hauser.
Sorbo has gone away, but now is back as a fast draw bounty hunter who still is troubled by the tenets of his former profession.That sets it up for you, an incredible piece of claptrap which God Bless 'Em the players all do with a straight face..
Seen it all before, but....
Wronged, silent hero thirsting for justice (and vengeance), finding a new purpose in life, a new family and saving the underdogs - and subsequently - a whole town from the evil, greedy, rich and powerful landowner aided by a corrupt sheriff and his hired guns...Yeah, it's been done before, at times even better.
But: There were some shots and scenes to be seen at times worthy of Sergio Leone.Sorbo's, Watross' and Chinlund's acting is out of this world - and it captures the atmosphere of the old, bad, wild west marvelously.
I do hope to see all of them in even more demanding projects.
As well as the little girl playing Emilia, who did a really good job as well.
Highly enjoyable experience..
Kevin Sorbo's First Western.
Having been a fan of "Hercules; the Legendary Journeys" and "Andromeda," I just had to see Kevin Sorbo in his first western.The story follows a pattern set by popular westerns before, and I found a few parallels to Clint Eastwood westerns of the 1960's.Just as "the man with no name," the character played by Sorbo is never mentioned by name anywhere in the movie.
He is referred to as "the preacher" or "the bounty hunter." The sheriff (Nick Chinland) cannot remember when he had seen the bounty hunter before, until a climactic moment in the story.
This reminds me of a favorite scene in "Hang 'em High." The villain in the story is a character the audience is sure to find most hateful.
Rich and greedy, even proud to admit it, he blows up the town's only church, kills innocent people, including women and children, all of them unarmed, after stealing from them the last of the money they had, even though he has more than enough for himself.
Yes, "the Colonel" (Wings Hauser) is indeed an evil dude.
He practically owns the whole town, and obviously owns the sheriff.Kevin Sorbo gets the chance to prove he can play a western gunslinger just as well as a hero of Greek mythology or a starship captain.
Then we get to see "Libby" from "Lost" again.
Cythia Watros appears as Maggie, who comes to his aid, and adds the element of romance to the story.Although stand-offish at first, the two work well together.
It isn't until after she tells him about her past as a saloon girl who got pregnant without knowing who the father is, that the lead character confesses that he too has a dark secret.
He used to be a preacher.
It is never debated which is the lesser of the two evils.Together we have all the elements of a western classic.
Each character goes through a wide range of emotions, especially Sorbo, who is in constant conflict with his conscience.
His Christian side wants to forgive, but his other side wants revenge.
This is not just a shoot-em-up action adventure, but a sensitive tale of morality and personal values.Ultimately, the hero saves the town and all the good people still alive, by ridding them of the evil of the colonel and his men.
Then, just as the audience may expect, there is the promise of a new life for the preacher, Maggie, and Maggie's daughter, Amelia, an angel faced darling played by Joey King, in what I suppose is her introductory role..
A magnificent story of faith & redemption!.
After watching this,I can only say that this was Kevin Sorbo's finest performance to date!
He played The Preacher, a pastor who gives up his calling after his church is destroyed with his wife & child inside.
He becomes a bounty hunter,seeking justice for the innocent.
He then returns to his town, where he finds that those responsible for the loss of his family have taken over.
After being injured by some of the rough goons, he is taken in by Maggie,a former prostitute and her daughter,Amelia.
Through their company,he begins to yearn for the life he once had,but at the same time, vengeance for his wife & daughter weighs heavily on his mind.
The Preacher went through a range of emotions-heartbreak,anger,rage,and Kevin played them all exceptionally well!
If you love a good Western or are a fan of Kevin Sorbo,I highly recommend this movie!.
Not exactly Sorbastic.....
When you count on some movie to be good and then first credits appear and RHI Entertainment logo pops out, you know, you are in trouble.
This is exactly what I have experienced with 'Avenging Angel'.
Western starring Kevin Sorbo?
Wings Hauser as a main villain?
More than awesome.
Unfortunately the movie itself wasn't awesome at any point and even though it was watchable, I am disappointed.
The biggest problem I have with it is a slow pace, I mean very slow pace.
Barely anything happens on screen, it was made for TV so forget about any real violence, forget about tits, forget about bad language, forget about over the top performances.
Kevin Sorbo is aways good to see but man, he doesn't have much to play with here.
He never was a great actor, more like a decent TV name and he does a decent TV job here.
He doesn't seem to be much in his character, he's still Kevin Sorbo.
Wings Hauser is pretty much useless here.
I mean, he's Ramrod (from 'Vice Squad'), he's top notch actor but he's wasted here.
We can only see him in a 3-4 short scenes, most of them are useless for the movie, Hauser appears only to remind local sheriff that 'squatters need to be gone'and disappears for a long time.Set design is decent, It doesn't exactly look like an old wild west but they did the best they could with a budget.
Some actors like the sheriff and a leading lady are highly annoying and pretty wooden.
There are no real shootouts, Kevin Sorbo shoots dead a few people and that's it.
He also has one(one!) fight in the whole movie and looses.
All in all It's a cliché western without an actual action, without any thrills with some serious script issues(sheriff who killed Sorbo's family and burnt his church can't recognize him after a year or so even though he looks exactly the same as he looked then).
It doesn't work as a cheesy movie and it doesn't work as a serious film either.
It's OK to watch once and forgot about it.