As a sucker for Westerns, I’m pretty easily drawn in whenever modern filmmakers attempt to tap back into that classic genre. It’s especially enticing when they’re remaking an old John Wayne movie. Such is the case with “Angel and the Badman”, a new film from director Julio Quintana that’s based on Wayne’s 1947 Western of the same name. I’ve since learned that there was a 2009 remake for the Hallmark Channel. I can’t speak to that one, but this latest version entertains despite its notable flaws.

Written by the trio of Jaime Hernandez, Kevin M. Townsend, and Christopher Tuffin, the story follows Quirt Evans (Zachary Levi), a notorious outlaw whose reputation is known throughout the territory. After burying a small chest of stolen confederate gold at an abandoned mission, a wounded Quirt rides his horse until he collapses in front of farmhouse where he’s found by a young woman named Penny Worth (Meg Fraser).

Quirt is brought inside and nursed back to health by a beguiled Penny, her mother Irene (Jean Louisa Kelly), her grandmother Harriet (Melissa Chambers), and her fussy kid brother Johnny (Barrett Ellis Luca). Quirt begins helping out around the place, even using some of his past reputation to straighten out a surly neighbor. But as anyone who has watched Westerns knows, stolen gold draws all kinds of bad hombres. In this case it’s Laredo (Neal McDonough), a ruthless gang leader determined to get his hands on that loot.

It’s pretty easy to figure out where the story goes from there. As Quirt gets a taste of a simpler life with the Worth family, Laredo arrives with his two henchman (Maurice Greene and Jesús Carús) and spoils things. The lone wildcard in the movie’s predictable hand is the underdeveloped Marshal Boone McClintock (Tommy Lee Jones), a lawman who grows leery of Quirt’s hanging out at the Worth’s home. The seasoned Jones is a personal favorite of mine and always a welcomed presence. But here his character almost feels like an afterthought.

As the story follows its rather conventional trajectory, Quintana spruces it up with some fittingly classical cinematography, costumes, and production design. He also mines some unexpectedly good laughs out of the material. Yet there are also occasional moments of overacting, some shaky accents, and instances where the dialog feels written for a Western movie rather than authentic to its time. Even more, chunks of helpful backstory seem to be missing, and the abrupt finish doesn’t end things on the best note.

Even with its flaws, “Angel and the Badman” has just enough genre flavor to scratch the itch of longtime Western fans. For everyone else, the reactions are likely to be a little more mixed. It’s a movie that leaves so much on and off the table. Though familiar, the premise has enough for a considerably more engaging story. And it sports a cast who are plenty capable of bringing it to life. Unfortunately, what we get is entertaining enough, but too generic to leave much of an impression.

VERDICT – 2.5 STARS