Gabriel
April 16th 2008 23:35
Category: Videos
Director: Shane Abbess.
Producers: Anna Cridland, Shane Abbess & Kristy Vernon.
Story & Screenplay by: Matt Hylton Todd & Shane Abbess.
Starring: Andy Whitfield (Gabriel), Dwaine Stevenson (Sammael), Samantha Noble (Jade), Harry Pavlidis (Uriel), Michael Piccirilli (Asmodeus), Jack Campbell (Raphael), Erika Heynatz (Lilith) & Kevin Copeland (Ahriman).
Produced by: 2007 HILT Productions Pty Ltd.
Released by: 2008 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia.
Running Time: 109 minutes. Rating: M.
Written on the cover of this particular movie is the statement: “Between Heaven and Hell lies the Fate of Mankind” it’s a bold and provocative statement, something stirring that could have come straight from the pen of some master propagandist or a speech writer for a bible thumping televangelist. As far as having anything to do with the actual plot in the movie the statement bares no relevance whatsoever to the unfolding drama that occurs. In Gabriel between Heaven and Hell lies not the fate of mankind but Purgatory. Which just goes to show that the old maxim of you can never judge something by its cover, or in this case by the bold statements made on said cover, holds fairly true. In a nutshell Gabriel is about the constant battle between the forces of Heaven (or the Light) and those of Hell (the Fallen) over the souls of humanity.
The current battleground between the sides of Light and Darkness is the realm of Purgatory, traditionally in Judaeo-Christian belief Purgatory was where those souls who were neither good nor bad ended up after dying. They could neither pass onto Heaven or Hell and had to await judgement in a sort of celestial half way house. Strangely in this particular Purgatory this doesn’t seem to be the case, though it is stated in the movie that this place, this cityscape is where such souls have come to await their eventual fate. If anything all that Purgatory looks like is more run down version of the real world, a lawless place cast into continued darkness and despair, not some kind of middle point between the celestial and infernal.
It seems that the conflict within this particular realm also obeys certain guidelines, each side can deploy one of its warriors onto the battlefield each cycle, thus the numbers of each sides warriors can only ever increase by one each passing cycle – whether a cycle is a year, a day, a month this is never actually mentioned its just one of those kind of conventions to make things seem funky. Kind of like Han Solo saying he made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs, it sounds good but it’s essentially movie babble. So it seems in seven cycles the two sides have deployed their best and brightest, the Fallen have Sammael, Balan, Moloch, Belial, Lilith, Ahriman and Asmodeus all the old school devils and demons whilst the Light have sent Uriel, Raphael, Ithuriel, Amatiel, Remiel and Michael to fight the Fallen. Now Gabriel, the last of the Arc Angels (why arc and not arch?) has been sent into the fray. The other rule in this constant battle is that each new warrior who arrives in Purgatory must assume a human form.
What got to me was that the powers that be, the Light, seems to have no idea of what the heck is actually going on in Purgatory, they have no reliable Intel. Not exactly the kind of situation you’d want when fighting a major scale war against an opponent and especially when you’re deploying your forces right into the thick of it. Yet this is precisely the situation Gabriel finds himself in as soon as the movie begins, he is falling from the heights of the celestial realm into a situation that he and those he follows have no idea about. He has had no contact with his fellows who have gone before him and he has no real concept of just what exactly is involved in his sudden incarnation upon the material plane.
Whilst watching this film I did find myself reminded a lot of the Crow with Brandon Lee, and frankly it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that they used the same sets and cast of extras. This film has gothic chic written all over it and though it kind of fitted a bit of the vibe it did make me think of the old Julius Sommer Millner line “Why is it so?” After all this is meant to be a realm of the dead, the people roaming around are the souls of the deceased so why is this place looking like a really seedy red light district in a truly run down city? Why is there even a city in this place? Why not some wasteland? Still I suppose a city works better in the long run, though it seemed to be more of a contrivance than anything to do with the internal dynamic of the story. You see the other sensation I had apart from thinking that Gabriel was a rerun of the Crow was the story and the actual movie itself where in conflict with each other, the conflict between good and evil, between angels and devils seemed to only take precedence only when it would look good on the screen.
So Gabriel arrives in Purgatory and he has to get himself in order in order to be able to confront the dangers that will soon beset him. He immediately searches for the Arc (again why Arc and not Arch) angle Michael whom is like a brother to him. Somehow he finds where Michael had once resided and amongst the fragments of a mirror that has been hit by a bullet at close range he finds a note left by the mighty warrior of the Light. And so the movie has set up itself for a Darth Vader style revelation as its drama unwinds, no doubt if you’re relatively clever (and frankly I think you are) you’ll soon work out what is going on pretty quick. As soon as he is incarnate in a material body Gabriel starts making an impression on Purgatory and rather than cowering or letting himself get awash with human feeling and emotion he wades into the fray, a warrior of Light intent on saving the souls of those in Purgatory.
There is certainly plenty of action in this film; the fight scenes are pretty cool I particularly like the fight between Gabriel and Ahriman, the Rastafarian looking drug lord with his West Indian patois and voodoo sayings, in fact he kind of reminded me of one of the gangsters under the leadership of King Willy in Predator 2. Still essentially the story of Gabriel eventually moves away from the struggle of good and evil over the souls of those awaiting judgment and control over the realm of Purgatory to essentially just a series of smack downs by Gabriel, a PS2 confrontation where Gabriel eventually ends up facing off against his nemesis; Sammael. There is no significant depth or feeling to this film, even when it tries at rare moments to evoke such.
Perhaps there is meant to be some kind of social commentary going on here, as at few points there is the sense that something else is trying to be said amidst the gothic chic and mindless violence – no doubt the internal story dynamic trying to reassert itself but it just comes across as something wooden and not quite working. A romantic moment between Gabriel and Amatiel/Jade, when he draws a picture of Amatiel, the conversation between him and the other arc angel Ithuriel over just how effective his (Ithuriel’s) soup kitchen is, all these little moments see to want to say so much more but end up being just fragments with no significant relevance or meaning.
Gabriel is unfortunately very much a flawed film, don’t do like I did and rent it as a new release, wait until it reaches the weeklies if not the bargain basement bin. And its certainly not worth spending money on owning, a shame really but then again “Between Heaven and Hell are the infinite wastes of numerous flawed films.”
Producers: Anna Cridland, Shane Abbess & Kristy Vernon.
Story & Screenplay by: Matt Hylton Todd & Shane Abbess.
Starring: Andy Whitfield (Gabriel), Dwaine Stevenson (Sammael), Samantha Noble (Jade), Harry Pavlidis (Uriel), Michael Piccirilli (Asmodeus), Jack Campbell (Raphael), Erika Heynatz (Lilith) & Kevin Copeland (Ahriman).
Produced by: 2007 HILT Productions Pty Ltd.
Released by: 2008 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Australia.
Running Time: 109 minutes. Rating: M.
Written on the cover of this particular movie is the statement: “Between Heaven and Hell lies the Fate of Mankind” it’s a bold and provocative statement, something stirring that could have come straight from the pen of some master propagandist or a speech writer for a bible thumping televangelist. As far as having anything to do with the actual plot in the movie the statement bares no relevance whatsoever to the unfolding drama that occurs. In Gabriel between Heaven and Hell lies not the fate of mankind but Purgatory. Which just goes to show that the old maxim of you can never judge something by its cover, or in this case by the bold statements made on said cover, holds fairly true. In a nutshell Gabriel is about the constant battle between the forces of Heaven (or the Light) and those of Hell (the Fallen) over the souls of humanity.
What got to me was that the powers that be, the Light, seems to have no idea of what the heck is actually going on in Purgatory, they have no reliable Intel. Not exactly the kind of situation you’d want when fighting a major scale war against an opponent and especially when you’re deploying your forces right into the thick of it. Yet this is precisely the situation Gabriel finds himself in as soon as the movie begins, he is falling from the heights of the celestial realm into a situation that he and those he follows have no idea about. He has had no contact with his fellows who have gone before him and he has no real concept of just what exactly is involved in his sudden incarnation upon the material plane.
Whilst watching this film I did find myself reminded a lot of the Crow with Brandon Lee, and frankly it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that they used the same sets and cast of extras. This film has gothic chic written all over it and though it kind of fitted a bit of the vibe it did make me think of the old Julius Sommer Millner line “Why is it so?” After all this is meant to be a realm of the dead, the people roaming around are the souls of the deceased so why is this place looking like a really seedy red light district in a truly run down city? Why is there even a city in this place? Why not some wasteland? Still I suppose a city works better in the long run, though it seemed to be more of a contrivance than anything to do with the internal dynamic of the story. You see the other sensation I had apart from thinking that Gabriel was a rerun of the Crow was the story and the actual movie itself where in conflict with each other, the conflict between good and evil, between angels and devils seemed to only take precedence only when it would look good on the screen.
So Gabriel arrives in Purgatory and he has to get himself in order in order to be able to confront the dangers that will soon beset him. He immediately searches for the Arc (again why Arc and not Arch) angle Michael whom is like a brother to him. Somehow he finds where Michael had once resided and amongst the fragments of a mirror that has been hit by a bullet at close range he finds a note left by the mighty warrior of the Light. And so the movie has set up itself for a Darth Vader style revelation as its drama unwinds, no doubt if you’re relatively clever (and frankly I think you are) you’ll soon work out what is going on pretty quick. As soon as he is incarnate in a material body Gabriel starts making an impression on Purgatory and rather than cowering or letting himself get awash with human feeling and emotion he wades into the fray, a warrior of Light intent on saving the souls of those in Purgatory.
There is certainly plenty of action in this film; the fight scenes are pretty cool I particularly like the fight between Gabriel and Ahriman, the Rastafarian looking drug lord with his West Indian patois and voodoo sayings, in fact he kind of reminded me of one of the gangsters under the leadership of King Willy in Predator 2. Still essentially the story of Gabriel eventually moves away from the struggle of good and evil over the souls of those awaiting judgment and control over the realm of Purgatory to essentially just a series of smack downs by Gabriel, a PS2 confrontation where Gabriel eventually ends up facing off against his nemesis; Sammael. There is no significant depth or feeling to this film, even when it tries at rare moments to evoke such.
Perhaps there is meant to be some kind of social commentary going on here, as at few points there is the sense that something else is trying to be said amidst the gothic chic and mindless violence – no doubt the internal story dynamic trying to reassert itself but it just comes across as something wooden and not quite working. A romantic moment between Gabriel and Amatiel/Jade, when he draws a picture of Amatiel, the conversation between him and the other arc angel Ithuriel over just how effective his (Ithuriel’s) soup kitchen is, all these little moments see to want to say so much more but end up being just fragments with no significant relevance or meaning.
Gabriel is unfortunately very much a flawed film, don’t do like I did and rent it as a new release, wait until it reaches the weeklies if not the bargain basement bin. And its certainly not worth spending money on owning, a shame really but then again “Between Heaven and Hell are the infinite wastes of numerous flawed films.”
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Comment by Kemmster
The thing that I couldn't work out is, and apologies but we get into Judeo/Christian mytholgy here, but we are talking about archangels here (yes it's spelt archangels but pronounced Arc Angel I don't know why but after getting the same story for 13 years at Catholic School just trust me). Anyway as I was saying we are talking about Archangels here, Gabriel is one of God's heavy hitters, he was the one who wiped Sodom and Gomorrah of the map, also known in some areas as the "Prime Minister of Heaven" and according to the Book of Revelations is the Angel rounding everyone up for Judgement Day and Michael is the General of all God's armies so why do these two or any of them on either side need guns??
This movie has many flaws but viewed for what was acheived for the budget it's pretty impressive.