Gabriel (2007)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Shane Abbess

Writers:

Shane Abbess (writer)
Matt Hylton Todd (writer)

Release Date:

15 November 2007 (Australia)

Genre:

Action | Horror

Tagline:

Far from Grace

Plot:

GABRIEL tells the story of an archangel who fights to bring light back to purgatory - a place where darkness rules - and save the souls of the city's inhabitants. |

Plot Keywords:

Blue Eyes | Torment | Plea For Forgiveness | Injection Scars | Reload

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Andy Whitfield	...	Gabriel
Dwaine Stevenson	...	Sammael
Samantha Noble	...	Jade / Amitiel
Michael Piccirilli	...	Asmodeus
Jack Campbell	...	Raphael
Erika Heynatz	...	Lilith
Harry Pavlidis	...	Uriel
Kevin Copeland	...	Ahriman
Matt Hylton Todd	...	Ithuriel
Brendan Clearkin	...	Balan
Goran D. Kleut	...	Moloch
Valentino del Toro	...	Baliel
Amy Mathews	...	Maggie
Paul Winchester	...	Marcus
Richard Huggett	...	Max

Runtime:

Greece:109 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Australia:M | Germany:16 | Malaysia:18PL | Singapore:M18 | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:16 | South Korea:18

Filming Locations:

Heddon Greta, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

HILT Productions

Trivia:

Produced on the minuscule budget of $150,000, tiny even by Australian standards. This was achieved by everyone in the production working on deferred payment.

Quotes:

Gabriel: Do you know who served us?
Jade: [looks at him] Does he seem familiar?
[Gabriel shakes his head]
Jade: Well he's been here a long time.
[looks at Gabriel, thinks for a moment]
Jade: That's Ithuriel, another who surrender to the fear. And after he heard of my fate, he choose exile over confrontation.
Gabriel: [shaking his head] I can’t...
Jade: [cuts Gabriel off, lowers her voice] Don’t be so harsh to judge others Gabriel. You haven't been here long enough to earn that right.
Gabriel: I don’t intend to either.

Excellent Surprise

Aussie self-consciousness, whether it figures in support of this film or against it, ain't relevant. Gabriel is a great existential-goth-action piece about archangels and their nemeses warring in human form and grappling with their newfound human frailties. For budgetary reasons the film favours the goth and the existential elements over the action one, and it's definitely all the better for it, because what it ultimately develops which is sorely lacking from a lot of films whose stylings it's adopted (the Underworlds, the Crows, etc.) is a ton of genuine involvement. The unknown actors give universally fine performances, and in the case of bad guy Sammael (Dwaine Stevenson) a deeply charismatic and disturbing one.

I was a bit worried by the wordlessness and flat grey look of the earliest scenes, but as soon as we hit the first dialogue two-hander, I got pulled into the characters' situation. Also, the film never looks as grey again as it does right at the start, even if the digital video footage doesn't give much depth of field in this dark world.

The fights are spaced out, but they're very cool. The choreography is of The Matrix almost ESP-martial arts kind, yet filmed in nice clear wide shots with minimal editing (or editing that's well-disguised by passing obstacles) so you can see what's going on. Sometimes it's guns, sometimes hand-to-hand, sometimes both, with bullet time, slow-mo, folks zipping around bullets, all the nifty stuff that's been developed in this genre. There's also an exciting shootout in strobing darkness that reminded me of Equilibrium's gun cabal scenes.

The film Gabriel reminds me of most strongly, however, isn't something super recent. It's Blade Runner. In that film, replicant robots unsure of their identity and nascent emotions variously went into hiding, went insane or fought for their survival in a world that wasn't really theirs when push came to shove. Replace 'robots' with 'angels' and you've got the basic premise of Gabriel. The angels are sent to purgatory to get in amongst the humans and steer them in the right direction, or in the case of bad guys The Fallen, keep them corrupt. But to adopt the mortal form is to become vulnerable to human weakness, and that's what Gabriel has to struggle with as he tries to rally his angel pals who've failed before him for one last battle.

Freakin' good film!