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Angels in heaven
Hell's Kitchen, 1998

Pictures from movie

Rated [R], 81 minutes
Starring Angelina Jolie
Directed by Tony Cinciripini

IN SHORT: It's Hell, all right.

Here's a tip to first time filmmakers: If you're going to start your movie with a big "event" which has long lasting repercussions over the next couple of years, make sure the audience has enough time to identify the characters that they need to know. Don't under light the scene so we can't see faces and don't put the robbery masks on those faces until we know who's who.

And then, when you kill 'em all -- save the one who gets away screaming "They've killed Johnny" -- don't pick up five years later with Johnny getting out of prison. Make sure you choreograph that shooting properly, so that robbers who come in with guns drawn don't seem to be counting one one thousand, two two thousand as the victim stumbles while trying to pull out his gun.

Then again, maybe it's Johnny's little brother screaming that may have distracted this reviewer from what Patty (Johnny Whitworth) was telling Gloria (Angelina Jolie). All I remember is Patty carefully laying Johnny's dead body down next to Haydn (Ryan Slater), Gloria's brother who's also dead. Back in present time,

Movies like Hell's Kitchen are why nice film reviewers devolve into cranky, bitter, cynics who, like Al Capp's famous shmoo are followed around by their own personal rain clouds on the sunniest of days. It is how we've all developed the ability to read unlit watch faces in the dark. And, trust me, seven other critics in a row at the screening room all looked down at their watches at the same time.