Sly Stallone plays Frankie Delano, loyal bodyguard to aged mobster Angelo Allieghieri (Anthony Quinn, in his final feature film appearance). Even after rival mobsters succeed in bumping off the old guy, Frankie vows to continue his mission in life of watching over Angelo's daughter Jennifer (Madeleine Stowe), who grew up completely unaware of her true parentage. Frankie & Jennifer predictably grow close while dodging numerous attempts on their lives.
"Avenging Angelo" regularly seesaws between exploiting comedic elements and trying to be genuinely poignant. While it's not completely successful, and is overall very predictable, Sly, ever-beautiful Madeleine, and the always welcome Quinn certainly make it watchable. It does deliver some decent laughs, and is at its best as it portrays the evolution of both the Jennifer character - who ends up wanting to "whack" mafia kingpin Lucio Malatesta (George Touliatos, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants") - and the whole Frankie / Jennifer relationship.
Sly delivers one of his more endearing performances, and has good chemistry with Madeline, whose character starts off as rather ridiculous and gets more tolerable as the film progresses. Quinn, of course, is perfectly cast and makes the most of his brief time on screen. Raoul Bova ("Under the Tuscan Sun"), Harry Van Gorkum ("Agent Cody Banks"), and comedian Billy Gardell ("Bad Santa") co-star.
Overall, "Avenging Angelo" is absolutely nothing special, but there are still much worse ways with which to kill time. It's not up to "Oscar" in terms of Sly's lighter fare, but is at least better than "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" (admittedly, not a high bar to clear).
Six out of 10.
"Avenging Angelo" regularly seesaws between exploiting comedic elements and trying to be genuinely poignant. While it's not completely successful, and is overall very predictable, Sly, ever-beautiful Madeleine, and the always welcome Quinn certainly make it watchable. It does deliver some decent laughs, and is at its best as it portrays the evolution of both the Jennifer character - who ends up wanting to "whack" mafia kingpin Lucio Malatesta (George Touliatos, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants") - and the whole Frankie / Jennifer relationship.
Sly delivers one of his more endearing performances, and has good chemistry with Madeline, whose character starts off as rather ridiculous and gets more tolerable as the film progresses. Quinn, of course, is perfectly cast and makes the most of his brief time on screen. Raoul Bova ("Under the Tuscan Sun"), Harry Van Gorkum ("Agent Cody Banks"), and comedian Billy Gardell ("Bad Santa") co-star.
Overall, "Avenging Angelo" is absolutely nothing special, but there are still much worse ways with which to kill time. It's not up to "Oscar" in terms of Sly's lighter fare, but is at least better than "Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot" (admittedly, not a high bar to clear).
Six out of 10.