# Angel's Ladies (2000)

### reviewed by
Laura Clifford

    ANGEL'S LADIES
    --------------

Mack and Angel Moore, senior Christian cemetary/funeral parlor owners from Eugene, Oregon, had a unique retirement idea. They sold their death related businesses in the dreary Northwest and moved to sunny Nevada, where they purchased Fran's Star Ranch, a legal brothel which they renamed. Director Doug Lindeman's documents their new business in "Angel's Ladies."

    LAURA:

"Angel's Ladies" sounds like a great idea for a documentary, especially given the background of the business' new owners (Mack is seventy, Angel fifty-five). Lindeman even captures the prurient interest of the public when he invites a tourist couple to go inside with him (funnily enough, its the wife who thinks it 'sounds like fun,' while the husband is concerned about their timetable). However, "Angel's Ladies" quickly outwears its welcome.

We're introduced to Mack and Angel as decent people who believe they're providing a needed service. Angel, in particular, is showcased grieving the loss of her two sons (one to illness, another to an accident) and first husband while likening their three 'girls' to her new family. Yet Lindeman is holding many things about this couple back, information that is shockingly abhorrent when revealed midway into the film. This holding back of information for dramatic effect later on seems dishonest.

The three prostitutes who we meet at "Angel's Ladies" are very different. Kevin is an outdoorsy horsewoman who seems pretty down to earth. Linda is friendly with Kevin and seems like the ex-suburban wife she was, but is given far less screen time than Kevin or Melody. Melody is the harshest of the three, seemingly more suited to the trade. Her recollections of things she's done to satisfy men's fetishistic fantasies become more and more offputting (as does the relish with which she relays them) as the documentary trudges on.

And trudge on this does, with increasingly repetitious shots of the girls cavorting in the desert in work costumes while addressing the camera crosscut with Angel becoming more and more defensive about the way she does business. The only person who seems to be making out at "Angel's Ladies" is the housekeeper, who professes to mostly sitting around drinking coffee.

Technically "Angel's Ladies" resembles a pretty good cable access production. Some editting choices are juvenile (repeat jump cuts to make someone 'dance' for example) while the music is cheesy and distracting.

    D-

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