Half Angel is a messy, charming relic

Is it worth the watch?

If you like movies that feel like a dusty paperback pulled from a bargain bin, you might find something to like here. It is a bit of a slog at times, honestly. People who get annoyed by plot holes or characters acting like absolute lunatics just to keep the story moving should probably skip this one. Seriously.

Allison Long is the girl who keeps having people drop dead around her, and the movie spends a lot of time trying to convince us she is just a misunderstood soul. The reporter, Duffy Giles, is the kind of guy who trusts his gut more than actual evidence. It is a classic dynamic, even if it feels a little stale by now.

The trial scene at the start is... well, it happens. It is fast, almost too fast. One minute she is on the stand, the next she is out and about. It feels like the writers just wanted to get to the poisoning part as quickly as possible. Fair enough, I guess.

Small things that stuck with me

• The lighting in the library scene makes everyone look like they are hiding secrets, which is probably the point.
• The dialogue is sharp enough to cut, but sometimes it sounds like nobody has ever actually spoken to a human being before.
• I noticed an extra in the background of the newsroom who is clearly just reading a blank newspaper. Classic.

The whole thing feels a bit like The Reporter in how it treats journalism as this magical force that fixes everything. But it lacks that punchy, gritty energy. It is just sort of... there. It is a movie that sits in the background of your brain while you wait for the next scene to finally start.

Is it as weird as The Eyes Have It? No, nowhere near it. It is actually quite straight-faced. That might be the problem. It takes itself so seriously that you end up laughing at the wrong moments. Like when the poison shows up for the third time and nobody seems to notice the pattern.

The ending is a bit of a shrug. It wraps things up because it has to, not because the story felt finished. You can almost see the gears grinding. If you have an hour or so to kill and don't mind a movie that feels like it was put together in a hurry, give it a go. Just don't go looking for life-changing cinema. It is just a movie. 🤷‍♂️