Review by:Peter Nastasi
PeterNastasi@TheCinemaSource.com

Cowboys & Angels is a light (in every sense of the word) dramedy written and directed by David Gleeson, starring Michael Legge as Shane and Allen Leech as Vincent. Straight, square Shane moves in with fabulously gay Vincent so that the two can afford an apartment in Limerick’s downtown, high-rent district. What unfolds is a sometimes touching, often clichéd, coming-of-age tale. Take it for what it is—a simple, enjoyable film that doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already but still manages to offer some good laughs and genuinely heartfelt moments.

Shane works for the Department of Agriculture, a safe civil-service job. He is square in every conventional sense of the word—his haircut, his clothing, his demeanor. What little we glimpse of his family supports this idea—his mother (herself a stock character, the repressed Irish lass) is skittish about her little boy living in the big bad city and leaves a religious amulet with him to serve as reminder/protection.

Vincent is every gay cliché you can think of. When Shane tries to unpack his toiletries, he finds the medicine cabinet jammed full of Vincent’s creams, scrubs, lotions, and conditioners. Vincent redecorates the living room (that’s right, being gay also means you have interior design credentials). Most important to Vincent’s character is that he’s studying fashion and preparing for his final exam of a fashion show.

After some initial roommate awkwardness, a kind of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy sequence occurs where Vincent does his best Carson Kressley impression, tossing Shane’s clothes from the closet to the ground, instructing him on which brands of jeans to wear if he must wear jeans. Next comes grooming, and Vincent lectures on the horrors of using soap on one’s face. The money Shane earns from a side career in drug running buys him the trendy new wardrobe and other things he needs under the guidance of Vincent.

A newly svelte Shane finds a kind of hollow fulfillment that (to the screenwriter’s credit) does not last. Eventually, Shane’s fast new lifestyle gets him into more trouble than he can handle. He learns his lesson and goes crawling back to Vincent for approval. Both actors do a splendid job and their friendship is mostly enjoyable to watch. I commend Gleeson for resisting the temptation to write a love scene between Shane and Vincent. They begin as friends and that is where the film leaves them.

So perhaps in some ways Cowboys & Angels is not as trite as it first seems to be. We expect Shane to have some revelation about his sexuality, but that’s not what the film is about. It’s about making life choices, and while the script may oversimplify these at times, it is nonetheless powerful, for example, to see young Shane interact with an older man on the cusp of retirement from his job at the ...