The Avenging Angel (1995)

Must See Movie...

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

YES they were BILL HICKMAN was the Leader of these men, who would go out and KILL the unbeliever's and the trouble makers for the LDS CHURCH. PORTER ROCKWELL was arrested for the attempted KILLING of GOV. LILAN BOGGS. the leaders of the LDS CHURCH were men who wanted riches from its congregations. SMITH believed in MULITPLE MARRIAGES and YOUNG loved the POWER he had over the state NOTHING was done w/o his PERMISSION. PORTER ROCKWELL was the last of the Avenging Angels. He did not think twice about killing INDIANS OR WHITE MEN he would always say "IT'S AS EASY AS WHEAT". This movie gives a slight insight as to the MORMONS life. BUT MR. HESTON is no where near the iron fisted personality of the dictating PROPHET YOUNG. who said that is not a prophesying man. he would leave that to other MEN.

There was an organization that existed in Utah after the Danites were disbanded. They were known as the Destroying Angels. The Mormons did kill people who were no threat to them in southern Utah. This was the Mountain Meadow Massacre on 11 September 1957. They killed over 100 men, women, and children on a wagon train from Arkansas. The only ones spared were children younger than 7. Even children as young as 9 were killed after the party was promised safe passage after turning over their weapons. Those left alive were given to Mormons in Utah to raise but eventually returned to their families back East. This was "The Crime of the Century" in the 1800's. There are some great books and many websites about it.

I have the video and I watch it quite often and have found it to be remarkably accurate for the period. Mr. Berenger if a perfect choice for the part. Although one of the reviewers errantly listed Brigham Young as founder of the Mormon Church, the movie is great. I would gladly recommend this movie to any and all who is interested in early American history. The period dress is accurate and the persecutions that the Mormon people were suffering is amply displayed as well as the needed response to those persecutions. Charleton Heston is a wise choice for the part of Brigham Young and supposedly was the only choice of the director and producers.

First of all, it's been a while since I saw this movie. So, I may be wrong about this, but one of the other reviewers mentions the "trek of the Mormons to Utah in the 1870's...." By the 1870's the Transcontinental Railroad had been completed. Therefore, during this period of time the trek to Utah consisted of hopping on the next train and riding it to the territory. The trek portrayed in the movie actually took place around 30 years earlier.My next criticism is that the "Avenging Angel" as portrayed in this movie never existed. They are loosely based on a group of renigade Mormons that existed for a short time while the Mormons were living Northern Missouri in the late 1830's. This group was more commonly known as the Danites. The Danites did commit crimes against both Mormons and Non-mormons of the area. However, the Church never sanctioned their activities. As a matter of fact, the first that the then Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, had heard of the activities of the Danites was when the organization's leader and founder, Sampson Avard, gave perjurious testimony accusing Smith of having been complicit in their crimes. Avard gave this testimony in order to save his own neck. Once their activities became known, the Danites were disbanded and were never reconstituted.Another inaccuracy is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints never sanction murder. There were several times that various groups used violence against members of the church and the Church sanctioned violence used by the members to defend them selves, but only in their defense, only when the Church?s enemies we in the act of physically threatening the saints.Finally, their is no evidence the Orin Porter Rockwell (Coburn's character) was ever a member of the Danites. He was a bodyguard to both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (Heston's character). He was a gun fighter reputed to have killed more men than Wyett Earp, Doc Holladay, Batt Masterson, and Tom Horn combined. He was fiercely loyal to the Church and its leaders. However, he was never party to cold-blooded murder.In short, I think that this movie would have been better if they had just used wholly fictitious characters and settings. The mixture of real people with an otherwise whole fictitious story only serves to perpetuate false ideas about the society that existed in 19th-century Utah.