Broken Angel (1988 TV Movie) User Reviews

Was every 80's teen in a gang?

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 4 December 2021]

That's the question that every parent will ask after watching this TV movie with William Shatner as he learns that his missing daughter is a part of a ruthless criminal gang and has been targeted for death by another even more brutal gang. It's a race war among teenagers, and you get to see a white gang and Asian gang go out at like a Jets and Sharks. It all starts after Shatner's daughter's best friend is killed after a prom and she disappears, and Shatner and his wife Susan Blakely are desperate to find her.

It's not that this isn't believable, it's the fact that is just so over the top especially as they question their pre-teen son over his sister's activities, like every cool teenage girl would confide in their bratty younger brother. Shatner on the street remind me of the poster of Georgie Scott in the movie "Hardcore". He encounters members of the Asian gang and finds a sixteen-year-old girl who confides to him her own story.

There's also the high school gym teacher, a young Latina who gives him a detailed overview of local gang history and even shows him a gang wall of names that includes the daughter. The younger brother has a scene where he brings home a taller boy to spend the night, and they giggle as they go upstairs after a confrontation with Shatner. Carmen Zapata as the school principal stands out in her few scenes, like a more serious version of Eve Arden in "Grease". This film has more questions come up than answers, showing late 80's as some modern cult as if they have their secret society and only went home to their wealthy parents to sleep before going out to cause more destruction even after giving a report card filled with A's.

Cheesy TV movie from the 80s

[littlebittypretty1 · 14 August 2009]

Broken Angel is one of those cheap 80s TV movies that are so awesomely lame that you just have to watch the whole thing. The plot is the daughter of William Shatner's character, played by Erika Eleniak, goes missing at the end of a school dance after a gang-related shooting that kills her friend. Shatner and his wife, Susan Blakely, spend the rest of the movie in search of her. They are at first "assisted" by a cop, played by Brock Peters, who is (as is usual for movies like this) actually pretty useless. The true help comes from a woman working for the L.A. Gang Project, a nonprofit to get kids out of gangs, who tells the couple that their daughter is actually a member of a gang herself!

There are also a couple side plots too, most notably Shatner's preteen son, who is gay or at least curious, and enjoys trying on his mother's diamond earrings. Of course this side plot doesn't really go anywhere and is not dealt with in any seriousness and could have and probably should have been left out.

Another thing this movie has is many lame and unintentionally funny scenes. One of the more comical scenes involves the Chinese gang and the white gang (as it is frequently called in the movie) engaging in a battle of sorts in a children's playground, yielding not guns, not knives, not even chains, but small planks of wood and sticks. Such harsh realism! Another great scene is where Shatner manages to fight off a group of probably 20 members of the Chinese gang (this time armed with small pocket knives) with nothing but a small bag, and then escapes and actually outruns 5 of them.

Then, as the search for their daughter continues but hope and leads begin to dwindle, the movie ends. Pretty suddenly, too, in a very anti-climactic way. I won't tell the "surprise," but you don't have to be a genius to figure out that it is going to be predictably happy.

In conclusion, both mildly interesting and unintentionally funny, Broken Angel is one really great, super cheesy 80s TV movie that everyone should definitely see!

Puts the thrill in thriller

[thevoyces · 10/10 · 26 February 2005]

A film which showcases what was clearly the high water mark in William Shatner's long and illustrious career. The Asian mafia plot line keeps it edgy, while the gay tween issues it softly addresses keeps it real. As a desperate father-cum-vigilante on a quest to solve his daughter's untimely murder,the only thing Chuck (Shatner) changes more often than his sweaters in this nail-biting whodunit are the rules themselves. He must though, as his antagonist turns out to be a lawless, yet colorfully dressed, band of drug smuggling, wanton Asians who will stop at close to nothing (spoiler alert - a heavy sack of shirts knocks them down but not out)to end his trying journey without any one of them going to the jail-house. A lazy-susan of supportive folk surround Chuck, most notably the police chief, who beams with the firmness associated with Morgan Freeman.