2 stars
In one particular way, Ordinary Angels is a revelation: After two seasons of watching him kick ass in the Reacher series on Amazon Prime, it’s exciting to watch Alan Ritchson dial it down so convincingly to play an ordinary single dad struggling to save his sick child. It’s an honest and raw performance strong enough to make you want to send a donation to his fictional family and save his little girl.
It’s also the only original or even interesting thing in the movie.
Directed by Jon Gunn (The Case for Christ), Ordinary Angels stars Hillary Swank as Sharon Stevens, an alcoholic hairdresser with a laundry list of issues she refuses to face, including a son who hates her and employees who are one more drunken episode by the boss away from quitting. One day, while nursing a hangover on the way to work, Stevens notices an article in the paper about a family with a sick little girl who needs money to get the kidney transplant she needs to live. Like a lot of alcoholics unable/unwilling to help themselves, Stevens decides she is the only person in the world who can help the family she doesn’t even know.
A series of increasingly predictable events follows, all following the same basic formula: a problem arises, and Stevens solves it while Dad looks on helplessly. There are a few minor detours, such as Stevens tracking down her son to show him what good she is doing for others and an obligatory relapse scene where Stevens gets wasted and passes out in front of the children she is helping. It’s all very paint-by-numbers with no lasting emotional impact.
Swank, a two-time Best Actress Oscar winner for Boy’s Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby, is all twang and teased hair as Stephens. She makes the audience believe her character is an abrasive whirlwind of manic energy who won’t take no for an answer. She is far less convincing in bringing the wounded woman behind all that bravado for everyone to see. There are scenes in the movie for her to do that, but none work.
Because this is based on a true story and you know before the film even starts that the little one won’t die in the end, the focus of Ordinary Angels must be intensely distracting for the audience. It must keep them off balance enough with the various subplots and the pacing of the young girl’s decline to keep them guessing. And it doesn’t.
