Almost an Angel

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Almost an Angel
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Cornell
Produced by	John Cornell Paul Hogan (executive producer)
Written by	Paul Hogan
Starring	Paul Hogan Elias Koteas Linda Kozlowski
Music by	Maurice Jarre
Cinematography	Russell Boyd
Editing by	David Stiven
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	December 19, 1990
Running time	96 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Almost an Angel is a 1990 comedy film directed by John Cornell and starring Paul Hogan. The original music score was composed by Maurice Jarre. The film's tagline is: "The man from down under is working for the man upstairs."

It was made after Paul Hogan's success with the Crocodile Dundee movies. It was a critical and commercial failure.

[edit] Plot

Terry Dean (Paul Hogan), a professional burglar specialized in sabotaging electronic surveillance systems, stands before his release from yet another stint in prison. Following a fellow inmate's suggestion, he decides to switch to bank robbery instead, with a special twist of his own design: first by having the security cameras record TV shows he would connect them to with a modified remote control, then entering disguised as a celebrity; the confusion over this unexpected appearance would serve to confound a detailed description.

Terry's first heist is successful, but shortly afterwards he witnesses a young boy about to be overrun by a van; he impulsively pushes the child away and is himself hit. While in the hospital, he has a nebulous experience (which may have been caused by Highway to Heaven playing on the room's TV) in which he meets God (Charlton Heston; this is used as a pun later on) who introduces himself as Terry's 'probation helper'. Though Terry has lived a sinful life, his last deed, impulsive as it was, has earned him a second chance to save his soul - by doing God's work as an angel in training.

After reawakening, Terry tries another hold-up (this time as Rod Steward), but a stroke of bad luck and a gang of amateurs interfere. During this, one of the thugs tries to shoot but fails to kill him (he had loaded his gun with blanks). Thinking himself to be an angel now, Terry re-thinks his ways, seeks advice in a church, and then he follows several 'signs' to another town. In a bar, he meets Steve Garner (Elias Koteas), an embittered young man confined to a wheelchair. In order to bring him out of his self-pity, Terry engages him in a fist-fight - on equal terms, sitting fixed on a stool -; Steve, taken with Terry's acceptance of him as a person, not a cripple, strikes up a friendship with Terry and offers him a place to stay at the youth center for children and teens, which he runs with his sister Rose (Linda Kozlowski).

Rose is at first suspicious about Terry, but Terry proves himself by slyly intimidating two drug dealers into leaving the center's area and helping out as much as he can, and Rose gradually falls in love with him. The center itself, however, is in financial difficulties, since its backer George Bealeman (Parley Baer), while claiming himself to be a faithful Christian, refuses to provide any more funds. Since he has no angel's powers, Terry uses his technical know-how to convince him otherwise: by recording and re-editing a segment from TV angelist Rev. Barton's (Ben Slack) telecast (which Bealeman watches feverently), and fitting the cross at the rooftop of the center's church with lighting effects, triggered by his universal remote.

At the evening where Bealeman drops by, however, two police detectives close in on Terry. Steve, who happens to overhear them, rushes off in his wheelchair to warn Terry, but during the flight he injures himself critically, slowly bleeding to death. Just after Bealeman has left, he arrives at the center, and while Rose runs to calls an ambulance, Steve delivers his warning. Afraid of death, Steve feels lost, and Terry, recalling his own experiences, gives him last comfort by assuring that he will find a place in Heaven. Reassured, Steve dies in the arms of Terry and Rose.

Terry then announces that he has to leave, and trying to comfort Rose, he reveals that he is "almost an angel"; Rose is understandably skeptical. But after he leaves, she checks Terry's universal remote which he had left her as a keepsake, only to discover that it contains no batteries, and the cross nevertheless begins to shine brilliantly on its own. She runs after Terry and calls out to him. Distracted, Terry slips and falls right before a speeding truck - only to have it pass right through him. Having passed his angel's exam, Terry continues on his quest to do God's work (though not without promising to return), and Rose is left comforted at last.