Rebranded from Angel Studios in 2025, the Angel media company and streaming platform inevitably reimagined the 1947 John Wayne project “Angel and the Badman” and not just for the angelic title. This is actually the third iteration; The 2009 Hallmark Channel adaptation, filmed in British Columbia winter instead of the dusty, sandy American West, starred Lou Diamond Phillips and Deborah Kara Unger. The latest film, directed by Julio Quintana, stars Zachary Levi and is occasionally distracting, peppered with soothing New Mexico landscapes.
The first version, the first in which Wayne self-financed as producer and star, came from Republic Pictures and veteran screenwriter James Edward Grant, who wrote 11 other Wayne films. The gamble was in Wayne’s decision to hire Grant as a first-time director. Engagingly balanced sage and six-gun romantic comedy one minute, quiet redemption drama the next, “Angel and the Badman” featured Wayne as Quirt Evans, a gunman and cattle rustler rescued from his violent past and doomed future by a chance encounter with a Quaker frontier family. The Worth clan, especially the demure but greedy adult daughter Penny, played by Gail Russell, nurse Quirt back to health following the opening credits shootout with the Laredo gang, of which Quirt is a member.
Of the three, the first film remains the most intriguing. It was not the first Quaker oatmeal – “The Woman from Cheyenne” preceded it and was followed by “High Noon” and “Cheyenne Autumn” and the inauthentic Western “Friendly Persuasion” – but it was the most characterful and delicious of the versions. Blending Christian virtues and righteous bloodshed, the new film could connect audiences with popular distributor Angel’s business model, which is driven by “values-based” stories that “amplify light and bring more good to the world” and “restore positive values to the entertainment industry” (according to website language).
What does it do here? Tommy Lee Jones certainly delivers as ex-Harry Carey Marshall, a sly, philosophical American who has his eye on Quirt and the Laredo gang. He is 80 years old, and thankfully Jones has done nothing to appear otherwise. But now his voice is louder, and delivering even the most cardinal lines offers humorous little payoffs. The downside to Jones being the upside of his own movie is simple: Sometimes you’d rather watch an entire movie about him. This man.
Zachary Levi as Quirt is a number of different things. Much of his role as written relies on his anachronistic style of wisdom; He answers things like “Goodbye’s never my thing” or says “I’m sorry I’m late!” as he saves the woman he loves from a fate worse than death. Elsewhere in the film, Quirt must reckon with the legacy of brutality his father and his livelihood have left him in recent years. Levi can’t reconcile the tonal swings, but he’s masterful, even if he’s more in the vein of Jason Sudekis/Ted Lasso than creating a dimensional dark angel. (This title always referred to not one but two angels.)
The Quaker religion is here replaced by the all-purpose Christian faith and believers represented in various forms by the townspeople (this is a very small town with very few extras) and the portrayal of the Worth family in this remake. Meg Fraser’s belligerent, longing Penny works well enough, but visually and character-wise, “The Angel and the Villain” tones down much of the western texture and atmosphere. Allowing for the idea of brand new towns uneasily sprouting alongside railroad tracks, the film shows us little of life or anything like it as it appeared in the 19th-century west. Each belt buckle looks like it was just pulled off the shelf; The signs look every bit like something painted 45 minutes before shooting began that day.
Cinematographer and editor Alex Quintana’s lighting, cutting and shot design – to the extent that he works with the director on the third element – ensures the job is done effortlessly but also without distinction or surprise. Frustratingly, the film’s first shot is its strongest: a well-judged long-distance shot of a lone rider on the horizon, after hearing gunshots off-screen, soon joined by horsemen pursuing him. We’ve seen a few like this before, but this one is cleverly framed and doesn’t look or feel like a rehash of a cliché.
Disappointment comes very quickly. There is little religiosity in the 1947 film, and there is serious chemistry between Wayne and Russell. The new “Angel and the Villain” trades those virtues for plenty of holiness and not much of a spark.