. . . to a shovel fight, and movies teach us that few people use conventional weapons (such as revolvers) in Louisiana. Pipes, power tools, and cloth sacks full of broken shards of glass are among the tools of the torture trade for the vengeful Angel of REPENTANCE, ably played by Forest Whitaker. Going off his lithium to better juggle his responsibilities as a single dad, carpenter, and serial kidnapper, Angel proves the adage, "If you want to feed old ladies to the gators in the bayou, first make sure they don't have relatives." Angel proves to be "crazy like a fox," inducing one of the killers to off himself while he still has enough pieces left to do the trick. The guiltier brother is last shown facing a fate too grisly for the cameras to dwell upon: days of cannibalizing his true love, followed by weeks of starving to death in Angel's basement bomb shelter. The lesson REPENTANCE teaches us is that the "self-help" industry is a crock. No one needs a "life coach." Everyone can find salvation inside their own heads (and if you want to have a REAL "near-death episode," just try throwing a random old lady off a bridge in Louisiana's "Voodoo Alley").
Review of Repentance
