Hooded Angels (2000) from Tuna and Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Tuna's notes

Hooded Angels (2000), AKA Glory Glory, is a Western about an all-girl gang of bank robbers. As the story opens, the Union army is attacking a small Texas town where a rebel group has been holed up. By the time the battle is over, nearly everyone in town is dead, including a young boy. Many of the women have been raped and abused by the soldiers, and one of them snaps and blows away all the remaining soldiers, including an innocent general who had just ordered his aides to catch the men responsible for the crimes.

Cut to three years later. A group of cowpokes arrive in town to complain about their ranch owner being bushwhacked. They find that the bank has recently been robbed by a hooded gang, and the sheriff is our of town, leading a posse to catch the robbers. Our featured cowhand discovers a medal that belonged to his father, the general from Scene I, which has been dropped by a gang member. Meanwhile, the posse arrives at the girls spread, where the men are lulled into relaxing, then killed.

This set up the plot. The cowboys are after the gang, not knowing that they are looking for a gang of women, and the women move to a new town to set up their next bank job. They kill time in a bath house, and entertaining at the local tavern. Some of the girls get together with the cowboys. Others are lesbians.

There are some positives. The look of the old west was very good. The girls were not dainty, lovable characters, but cold-hearted and meaner than snakes. The biggest problems were the accents, which were not even close to Texas accents, and the fact that there was a lot of nothing between the sex scenes and the action scenes.

 

DVD INFO

  • Bare-bones. No features. No widescreen.

NUDITY REPORT

  • Amanda Donohoe shows one breast in an apres-sex scene.

  • Chantelle Stander and Julia Venter show fleeting glimpses of their breasts in a spa scene.

  • Ana Alexander shows her breasts in the spa, and a flash of her pubes as well.

  • An unknown naked woman is seen walking away from the camera in the Spa.

Scoop's notes

Hooded Angels is an attempt to create a mythical, operatic Western in the manner of Sergio Leone, with the twist that the evil outlaws are women, and that their behavior is justified, or at least rationalized, by their lawless society's inability to protect them. The film does have moments when it seems to reach Leone's level of iconic grandeur. A Welsh composer named Mark Thomas contributed original music which was evocative of the scores which Ennio Morricone created for Leone. There are several scenes which are carefully and effectively composed by the director and cinematographer to create the stylized West of legend. As in Leone's films, the morality of the characters is murky, and no major character is all good or bad.

Having spread around some kudos, I reckon I should probably point out that the whole thing just doesn't work. The background lacks authenticity. Two of the lead actresses attempt outrageous faux-American accents, but pepper their speech with various Dutch-sounding pronunciations. The action which is supposed to take place in Texas involves people ridin' around in multiple layers of heavy clothing. The small Texas towns have four-star entertainment in the saloons and elegant modern spas. Apart from the lack of realism, the main problems are that the characters are bland and generic, the situations predictable, and the acting often sub-standard.

If your mouth is watering at the prospect of a bunch of nudity and hot cowgirl-on-cowgirl action, you'll also be disappointed in that regard. This is not an exploitation movie. The director seemed to have some inclinations in that direction. After all, he did add a completely gratuitous and totally unrealistic nude spa scene. Unfortunately, he seemed to hold back from making that scene exploitative, perhaps fearing that it would destroy the gritty Leone vibe, so he offered us only teasing looks at the cowgirls' flesh.

 Bottom line: it ain't an exploitation film and it ain't The Good the Bad and the Ugly, but it does have good, bad and ugly elements.

The Critics Vote ...

  • No major reviews online

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

Our own guideline:

  • A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre.
  • B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. In order to rate at least a B-, a film should be both a critical and commercial success. Exceptions: (1) We will occasionally rate a film B- with good popular acceptance and bad reviews, if we believe the critics have severely underrated a film. (2) We may also assign a B- or better to a well-reviewed film which did not do well at the box office if we feel that the fault lay in the marketing of the film, and that the film might have been a hit if people had known about it. (Like, for example, The Waterdance.)
  • C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by people who enjoy this kind of movie. If this is your kind of movie, a C+ and an A are indistinguishable to you.
  • C means it is competent, but uninspired genre fare. People who like this kind of movie will think it satisfactory. Others probably will not.
  • C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie, but genre addicts find it watchable. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film, but films with this rating should be approached with caution by mainstream audiences, who may find them incompetent or repulsive or both. If this is NOT your kind of movie, a C- and an E are indistinguishable to you.
  • D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-. Films rated below C- generally have both bad reviews and poor popular acceptance.
  • E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre.
  • F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

 

Based on this description, this film is a D+. It is not worth a watch, either for fans of Westerns or for fans of exploitation movies, but it does have some memorable iconography and music from time to time.

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