Angel City (1980 TV Movie) User Reviews

This is about the book, actually...

[morgan-615 · 8/10 · 22 September 2013]

The man who wrote the book on which Angel City was based - Patrick Smith - was the PR director at a community college in Florida, and I worked for him for a year. To research the story, Pat went undercover in a camp and lived in the horrible conditions for himself, so he could tell the real story.

It's been so long since I've read the book and seen the movie, I don't remember how they compare, but Pat's book was based on things he really experienced, and I believe the movie was fairly true to that. People who feel the movie wasn't realistic might want to reconsider, or do some research for themselves.

A migrant farm workers thriller!

[yenlo · 7/10 · 4 August 1999]

Made for TV movie about a dirt poor family who pack all they have into their beat up pick up truck and head out in search of something better. They find work as migrant farm workers picking crops. They also quickly learn that their employment comes with a cost. They are held as virtual prisoners on what could be described as a cross between a slave plantation and a concentration camp. The corrupt head honcho has also developed a system to keep his employees from fleeing.

Ralph Waite best known for playing yet another scratching to keep his family fed character John Walton from The Waltons is featured as the head of the down on their luck family. Mitch Ryan is cast as the sinister head of the migrant workers camp. Paul Winfield co-stars as another Angel City inmate and Elvis Presley buddy Red West as one of the camps Bulls. An interesting original thriller.

So true to life, and still goes on.

[evileyemonster · 8/10 · 28 November 2018]

This movie reflects (with dramatic license) the real thing, and still happened around the time the movie was made. In Zellwood, Florida, the same situation existed with the shanty homes and the company store,; where the migrants also cashed their paychecks. The only untrue part of this movie was the fence. The rest is true to life. You can go there now and see the shanty houses. Still occupied.

I love how it ended

[dtucker86 · 23 October 2003]

Ralph Waite is best known for his role as the father on The Waltons tv series. He plays a similar character here, a good decent man with simple values of love and family (watch the scene where his family and him pray over their dogs grave). He is a good decent salt of the earth type who unwittingly stumbles into hell! Mitchell Ryan plays the plantation owner who is a real wolf in sheep clothing. He offers him a job and then he and his family are held prisoner in a virtual concentration camp. Paul Winfield gives a fine performance as a fellow inmate and this was one of Jennifer Jason Leigh's first roles as well. I remember the scene where they were picking cotton in the fields and started singing a spiritual, it reminded me a lot of Gone With The Wind. Waite and his family are such wonderful people that you feel so angry and sad at their terrible prediciment. The ending of the film is what I enjoyed the most where they revolted against Ryan. I loved the scene where Waite beat the *$#@ out of him with that pistol and was going to shoot him! It was as if this good man was pushed to the brink and finally backed down. I hated Ryan's character so much that I wanted him to shoot the son of a bitch, after all he had raped his daughter and kidnapped his baby! He sort of reminded me of Jim Jones. Maybe this is a parable about the importance of family love and staying together against all odds, and about the importance of freedom and what would happen if it were suddenly taken from us. Angel City is a first class tv film and it has got a great and satisfying ending that leaves you feeling wonderful. When it comes down to it, what more could you ask of a film!

"You'll find out on Saturday"

[termitekeith · 7/10 · 10 June 2020]

Does about as good of a job explaining the problem of migrant worker exploitation as a 1980 TV movie could do. My issue with this movie is with the casting. Mexicans were heavily exploited in camps like this but of course a white family is picked to tell the story. I could live with this if they had done a better job casting the parts. I mean I can buy Ralph Waite as the weary, down on his luck homesteader who leaves behind his home in the hills to look for work. His weather beaten face and persona as Mr Walton fits the role well but his family looks more like they belong on a 70's sitcom. Jennifer Warren is a capable actress who isn't given much to do here other than support her family and be really, really pregnant but she looks like a suburban soccer mom, not a woman who's been scratching out a hard scrabble existence in the hills of West Virginia in addition to the fact that she looks way too young to be Ralph Waite's wife. And the kids? Are you kidding. They look like 2 suburban teenagers who've never done a hard days work in their lives. This aside this movie is saved by the chemistry between Ralph Waite and Paul Winfield as you really sympathize with their plight. Reliable character actor Mitchell Ryan plays the sleazy camp owner Silas Creedy (That just sounds like the name of an evil plantation owner) who we can sense is a lowlife from the time he's introduced but we don't realize just how sleazy and depraved he really is until the movie's final act. Character actor and sometime stuntman Bob Minor and Elvis bodyguard Red West play his 2 camp thugs Jabo and Sud.

A hidden gem

[rosecalifornia · 10/10 · 25 June 2016]

I'm one of those people that enjoys Ralph Waite in everything. I am sure it has to do with the fact of watching him for so long on the Waltons. I also prefer older films to anything new, so I tend to really scour titles looking for things to watch that I have never seen. In comes this title, I read the description, saw the actors and said - sure let me give it a try.

Wow. You can kind of say it is a 70's version of Grapes of Wrath (somewhat). The story line is as old as time and if you know about migrant workers you have a little background on what can happen. The acting is believable....it truly is, and at a couple points in the film you actually are on the edge of your seat - and will really get you thinking.

Hard to write something really descriptive because I don't want to give anything away - since EVERY scene in the movie grabs you and is important.

Grab the popcorn, a blanket and tell everyone to leave you alone one evening and watch it!

Excellent movie about poverty and criminal employers

[climbingivy · 10/10 · 24 February 2012]

I saw this movie way back when it first aired on television in 1980.I was impressed with the story and of course with the actors.I purchased what I thought was a commercially produced VHS tape of the movie from Amazon a few months ago which turned out to be a bootleg version.I still enjoyed watching the movie again.I marvel at Ralph Waites's performance in this movie as the strong caring father of the family.Ralph Waite was wonderful as the strong caring father on the 1970s made for television series called the Waltons written by author Earl Hamner as a semi biographical take on his real family while he was growing up.The two roles were very similar.Jennifer Jason Leigh was excellent as the daughter.Don't forget Paul Winfield.What a talent Paul Winfield was.Check this movie out.I have this movie.

We'll sell everything but cucumbers.

[mark.waltz · 8/10 · 25 November 2021]

Audiences got a glimpse of what work camps were like in "The Grapes of Wrath" which was set in California. This TV movie takes the audience down to Florida to the not quite angelic Angel City, a horrific Work Camp run by Mitchell Ryan who basically treats the migrant workers as slaves, locking them in at night and charging them for every little thing including unwanted bottles of cheap wine. Papa Ralph Waite, having lost his farm in the mountains of West Virginia, makes the mistake agreeing to work there, thinking that by picking vegetables and working hard he can make a lot of money to get his family out of there as quickly as possible. But that's not the case here. He finds when he goes to get paid that he's got a huge bill and when he tries to leave, they kidnap his young daughter (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and turn her into something extremely horrible and unmentionable.

With a pregnant wife (Jennifer Warren), another son and a cute little dog, Waite is as honorable as they come. He befriends next door neighbor Paul Winfield who seems shocked that a white man trusts him and even wants to go into business with him. Certainly when an unspeakable event occurs, the immigrants and other black workers are there for him and his family, and when everybody has had enough, they follow his lead in an effort to escape Hell City.

The exploitation of these human beings is a disgusting thing to watch, and perhaps it is wrapped up too neatly, but the way it builds really grips you and the performances are all outstanding. Ryan, a great actor at playing villains, is truly despicable here, and he is surrounded by the most horrific crew possible who do his every whim, even threatening the other migrant workers to lie in his favor when the law shows up. There is a great song, "I'm Going Home" at the end, and a violent twist that the excellent Winfield must prevent from happening. This is life as we'd like to believe it is. People in bad situations triumphing against the bad people trying to keep them down, and that makes it truly uplifting.

Terrific little tv movie.

[jane-42 · 5/10 · 26 June 2001]

The plot can get questionable on this one, true, but it's worth seeking out just to see the early work of Jennifer Jason Leigh! Done before "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (my favorite) this tv flick has young Jennifer as the daughter of Jennifer Warren, another face you may recognize. Their family goes off in search of work, and Ralph Waite from the Waltons is in it too. Fun to see, everybody is sooooo young!

TV melodrama

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 16 April 2015]

West Virginian mountain folks Jared (Ralph Waite) and Cloma Teeter (Jennifer Warren) lost their ancestral family farm. They are forced to move out with their children Kristy (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Bennie (Robert MacNaughton) to Florida for any work. Work is hard to find and they fall prey to unscrupulous employer Silas Creedy (Mitchell Ryan) and his work camp Angel City. The camp is more like a prison where Creedy's rigged system cheat them of their money. Their next door neighbor Cy (Paul Winfield) warns them to leave. Sud and Jabbo are Creedy henchmen who run the sadistic camp.

I watched this solely for Jennifer Jason Leigh. It's way too sincere. Jared is a naive simple mountain folk. Creedy is an evil villain. It's fine to do that but they are simply too obvious and too extreme for compelling drama. They don't let anything go pass. They even kill the dog. The movie piles on so much that it loses perspective. It's kind of silly to have Sud and Jabbo give the evil laugh after killing the dog. With kidnappings and beatings, Cy could have been a bit more specific about his warning. The movie lacks realism by pushing too hard.

Good 'un

[richardokeeffe · 17 October 2005]

Dirt poor southern family Go West!" , find work, get abused and revolt. Ralph Waite is good as the paterfamilias and his change from solid hard-working farmer to (mini) revolutionary leader is believable.

Solid performances all round. It was a fruit/vegetable farm they were working on btw, not cotton - they spent their time pickin' the cuze' (cucumbers).

Nice decry of immigrant exploitation in the food industry. The traps used by the landowner (high rent, booking fee etc), and the hopelessness of the poverty trap get a good exposure Hope that eyes were opened etc.......................