User Reviews

While the movie would not attract mainstream audiences, it did portray life how it must have been somewhere in the USA in the late 1800's.

The competition between the two places to get the judge to approve of their establishment was an interesting topic. Outdoing each other in their "shows" for the judge. Also the reality of older girls not making money, having to leave and the consequences of what happens then.

Also the scene where the guy is shot in the bar, as we are seeing life from the girls viewpoint, they would not know the reasons behind this, so neither did we.

All in all a good historical perspective movie, showing the stark/slow reality of a snapshot of life then.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Nothing happens in the entire movie and there is nothing to distract you from sitting in the cinema wondering why you have paid money to watch this.

I could find no redeemable features for this movie and find it astonishing that this could ever get made never mind released into the cinemas.

At least from now on when I am watching a bad movie I'll be able to console myself with the though "At least it isn't Painted Angels"

This film plods to say the least! I saw one couple get up and walk out. We have no TV at home so found the novelty of moving pictures just enough to hold our interest. The only redeeming feature was the acting, it was convincing despite chronic editing and lack of direction. You felt the story wanted to go somewhere but the makers were too frightened, maybe due to the budget. What story there was, was difficult to grasp with the few threads we were given, but then there are awful cliches as well. Lines like, "why did you do it?" after one actor tries to kill themselves, I wasn't sure if they were doing this for real to get out of the film. Another was to do with some blood. You couldnt help but cringe at the lack of imagination. All the time though you felt a character may explode into life, a dialogue may start that interests you. But no, that could have verged on being entertaining.

In summary I felt the makers got bored with this and it showed.

Oh my gawd!!! The only reason this isn't listed as the worst movie on IMDB is that few will admit to seeing it (only 29 votes as of this writing) and fewer have lived through it to tell the horrible tale!! It's like watching a dead horse decay in the desert sun, only it's less fun and has a much worse smell! Rented on the premise of "whores in the old west, how bad could it be?" a friend and I sat stunned as this story stagnated on the screen, much like someone watching their own entrails slowly being removed; but then they might CARE about the ending. This film is so depressing it could drive Disney characters to a life of heroin and suicide. It makes Deerhunter and Apocalypse Now look like Saturday Morning cartoons. If you are ever forced to watch this, plead with your captors to kill you in any manor, or give them whatever they want, turn on your country, kinfolk and God, but DON'T watch this movie!! P.S. the one person that gave this movie a "10" rating must just be a sadistic madman who wants to lure you into his twisted, cruel world.

This film shows the real thing, how it probably was working at a small-town bordello during late 19th century. Nothing fancy at all. This is what it really was like. I liked the unusual structure of the film, the status quo-feeling that is so much more real compared to the basic -beginning-build up-the hero's back on top- structure. This is a great film! Unfortunately, it's an acquired taste.

If you are a sick, sadist.

This has to be one of the worst films ever made. Luckily I watched this on Sky in the UK and didn't actually pay to see it because I would be in tears thinking of the money I had wasted to see this.

There is no plot, no good acting and noting happens from start to finish.

Please I beg you to stay clear of this film

When I was in the US Navy and aboard ship, I sat through some (what I thought) were really bad flicks. However compared to this movie they would have won academy awards! This has got to be the worst movie that has ever spoiled a piece of film. How in the world it ever got past the cutting room floor is beyond me! It is the most boring piece of work I have ever seen. Ever heard of watching paint dry? That would be exciting compared to this film. I have no idea how anyone could rate this insanity above a one! The only person who could sit through this, and rate it a 2 or above, would have to be Hellen Keller. Thank God I bought this at a garage sale for a dollar, I would just scream if I would have paid over that! Hopefully I can use a piece of this tape to repair a good one, or just erase it and start over!

I just watched this film. It was unrelenting, a story of the rough circumstances prostitutes endured in the West a little more than a century ago. Its a woman's story, almost totally without a male point of view. The men are represented as beings who mostly just mumble and play cards. Their voices are heard often muttering on the soundtrack. We can't make out what they're actually saying. Representing the guys as stick figures helps emphasize in what reduced and lonely circumstances the prostitutes inhabit their dance hall and saloon world. There are no women who are not prostitutes in this early western town. Just as the men have little regard for the women, the women think little of the men. I think this may be a fairly truthful accounting of the West before it was civilized. The film has got me thinking about how desperate male-female relationships may have been in America not all that long ago.

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Makes "Unforgiven" look like "Oklahoma"- horribly real. Fricker is like Thatcher - the only heroes in the end are the survivors - rings true don't you think? Feels like history instead of John Wayne. Pity the whole story isn't there.

Philip French Sunday 20 June 1999 guardian.co.uk

Painted Angels (1998, 15, Artificial Eye, Rental/Retail) In Ride the High Country (1962), Sam Peckinpah put the whores into the horse opera, making the once taboo subject of frontier prostitution a proper theme for Westerns. Jon Sanders' unsentimental, non-prurient Painted Angela, one of the most realistic accounts of sex out West, concerns the girls in a brothel run by ruthless Irish madam Brenda Fricker on the fringe of a bleak prairie town in the 1880s. A socially detailed, achingly moving story of brutality and occasional tenderness is unfolded with considerable subtlety. The cast, headed by Kelly McGillis, is flawless.

It simply doesn't. I agree that the title "Wicked Wicked West" is not a good one for what this film is. It's actually a terrible title. But the film itself is a noble effort at realistically portraying something that most Westerns don't really give a crap about, the women of "easy virtue". In many movies set in this time and place, the prostitute characters (often barely qualifying as full characters) are just taken for granted: jolly, good fun, not really are they problematic, but seen more the context of innocent male back-slapping fun. No harm done, right? Well, this is more like what it really was. I visited Tombstone, Arizona a while ago and between the touristy things there was also a small exhibit about what the lives of prostitutes were like. It is the saddest thing ever. The women as in this film are on the lucky end the the spectrum, as they themselves realize and often say. There were many, many women in this line of work in the old West, and the hopelessness of their situation was just beyond belief. Diseases, abortions, laudanum abuse. And all of it is real, real, real historical documented real.

So yeah, as one reviewer commented, they make sex look boring. You know why? Because it *was* boring. Without intimacy, without love, fraught with the danger of disease and pregnancy (without modern medicine!)... given these conditions, isn't that the best it could be? The film itself was a bit boring in parts, but I liked the interactions of the characters. As far as historical fiction in film goes, there has been lots worse. And this is nowhere near the worst movie anybody has seen--- I mean it, the other reviewers are being a bit disingenuous here! To make a point, I suppose, that this is not their cup of tea. Fine, but it's still tolerably good stuff.

This film is hard to sum up because there is really not a plot, per se. The film follows the lives of prostitutes living in a brothel owned by Annie Ryan (Brenda Fricker). This is not the brothel of TV westerns, this is a dark, dank place barely lit by candle light in a dingy little ten building frontier town. Kelly McGillis plays Nettie, who helps the other prostitutes through their time at Annie's establishment, as well as the competition down the street. It is implied she performs abortions for unexpected pregnancies. She tries to raise her five year old son in the house, with less than successful results. Eileen (Bronagh Gallagher) is Irish, and befriends German dancer Katya (Meret Becker), who replaces Eileen's best friend who was murdered in the opening scene. Georgie (Lisa Jakub) is the new young prostitute who knows she can do better that this one horse town, and sets out to prove it. Ada (Anna Mottram) is the prostitute with children who is getting older and less desirable to the men.

The entire cast does a fantastic job. Sanders' direction, he also cowrote this, is very intimate without being exploitative, except for McGillis' topless scene. The film is sad, without being a complete downer, but you get the idea that this is what the prostitutes went through. The pace seems deliberately slow so we get to know the characters. That pace is a little too slow at times, and a few supporting actors blur in confusion here and there, but Sanders keeps things going. Despite the stupid video and DVD title ("The Wicked Wicked West" is so much worse than the original title "Painted Angels"), and cleavage baring VHS video box, this is not something along the lines of "Bad Girls" or "Hard Bounty." This tells a very realistic story of tough lives gone wrong. If anything, it is hard to forget.

I remember this film when it came out on VHS in the UK... other people have commented on the gross marketing of the DVD by the American distributors; they are absolutely right! This film is in fact a feminist film (although directed by a man) about prostitution in the old West and the exploitation of, mainly immigrant, women. The way it deals with the "work" reminded me of "Working Girls", Lizzie Borden's film about the reality of prostitution. The lives of these women had much in common with those women today from eastern Europe and the third world who are victims of trafficking. The reaction to this film is always going to be mixed... a lot of people prefer the romantic view of prostitutes as "tarts with hearts"... but this is groundbreaking in its treatment of the subject and was probably ahead of its time. What really makes it stand out though is the incredible feel for time and place, the touching camaraderie between the women and the fantastic acting from the cast who all give brave and uncompromising performances. I really hope this film stays "out there".

The movie is slow, but it's nicely shot. And the slowness is like a metaphor, for their lives. Their lives were slow. What did people do in the prairies in the middle of winter in 1890? Nothing So,the film mimics their lives and forces us to slow down to their pace. Kelly McGillis is a sweetheart, she always has been and should have more leading roles than she does. She is my dream lady.

The film is made in the manner of a dark brooding Scandinavian melodrama and is more of a slice of the darker side of prostitution. I saw it on video by Sterling and they should be shot for the box promotion which indicated more of a sensual sexual randy tale: "Expert in the pleasures of the flesh, these women...put the wild in the west." Obviously the person writing this did not bother to watch the film. On the video cover three saloon dressed typed women were added (none of whom were in the movie) further adding to the false advertising of the film. Yes it is slow and even boring and hardly uplifting, but it is a tale of women trapped in a degrading 'lifestyle.' The nudity in this film is about as titilating as the nudity in Jennifer Connelly's "Requiem for a Dream".

The preceding user comments are all painfully accurate.

This movie is slow and boring. However, it does depict, in a gritty, realistic way, the allegedly good old days that some people think were superior in every way to our modern era.

Most folks back then lived the kind of dreary existence that this movie portrays. In this case, the dreariness is prostitution in the boondocks.

On the plus side, the movie was beautifully filmed. The lighting in the brothel at night was appropriately dim, which certainly renewed my appreciation for electricity.

However, the sound is awful. The actors mumble, and a few of them mumble with a thick accent, so I'm sure I missed dialog that was probably important to the story.

Some scenes had me stumped. For instance, the theatrical piece with the horse. What the heck was THAT all about??

I think this movie was EXTREMELY slow and boring, It might be because there was no music in the backround.