Hooded Angels (a.k.a. Glory Glory) is a 2002 western film from South Africa, starring Chantelle Stander, Amanda Donahoe, Steven Bauer, Paul Johannson, Juliana Venter and Gary Busey.
It is the dawn of The Wild West in Silver Creek. A gang of beautiful but deadly women have unleashed violence on the society that failed to protect them, robbing banks and destroying everything in their path. A posse is sent after these masked raiders, not knowing whom they are chasing nor the fate that will await them — for bringing these female vigilantes to justice will unleash a surprising past and a new future for all.
Tropes:
- Alliterative Name: 'Widow' Wilson, who no longer remembers what her given name was.
- Amazon Brigade: The Angels are an all-female gang of outlaws and gunslingers.
- Badass Longcoat: Just about everybody in either the Angels gang and Wes's posse wears some sort of duster, covering the full range of styles: from the plain canvas ones worn by Hannah and Wes, through the shaggy buffalo fur one worn by Billy, to the very feminine and fashionable maroon one with silver conches sported by April.
- Bank Robbery: The Hooded Angels specialize in robbing banks. The audience sees the aftermath of the robbery they pulled in Twin Forks, and later an actual robbery in the town. Their procedure is practiced, professional and efficient, until Psycho Party Member Ellie sends the job Off the Rails.
- Blast Out: At the end of the movie, there is a showdown between the surviving Angels and Wes and his posse in Silver Creek, with the two groups standing on opposite sides of the town square with their hands hovering over their guns. While it doubtful the standoff could have been resolved peacefully given Hannah's determination not to be taken alive, the opportunity never arises, as Psycho Party Member Ellie chooses to lob dynamite between the groups. People dive for cover and as April does so, her hand instinctively closes on her pistol butt and pulls it clear of the holster. Billy sees the gun come out and shoots her, and the firefight is on.
- Call to Agriculture: At the end of the movie, with his father's killer final dealt with, Wes takes his men to return to his ranch, with the implication that his adventuring days are finally done.
- Clueless Deputy: Given Roy's complete inability to handle the confrontation between Wes's men and the bushwhackers, the impression given is that the sheriff of Twin Forks left him to guard the town while the Posse chased the bank robbers is because he is useless. His uselessness saves his life as the posse gets massacred.
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: Hannah is able to free her bound wrists by burning through the rope on the campfire.
- Cradling Your Kill: Hannah shoots her lover Ellie just as Ellie is about to kill Wes: having realised that Ellie has descended into complete insanity and that she can no longer hold her in check. She then cradles Ellie's head in her lap as she dies.
- Death of a Child: Hannah's three year old son Tommy is shot and killed by one of the Confederate militia during the sacking of Silver Creek. It is this event, even more than her rape, that turns her into a vigilante and then an outlaw.
- "Double, Double" Title: The alternative title is Glory Glory.
- Fresh Clue: When Wes is tracking Hannah across the prairie, he finds the remains of her campfire. The ashes are still warm so he knows he is closing in.
- Ghost Town: After the war, Silver Creek is an abandoned town full of burnt-out buildings where the Angels go to regroup. It is also the location of their final showdown with Wes and his posse.
- Giving Them the Strip: Hannah wakes to find that Wes has bound her hands and feet. She is able to get her feet free by working her boots off.
- Grave-Marking Scene: The final scene has the Widow laying a single on the grave of Hannah's son Tommy—which has a new grave marker—before she departs to start a new life. As she leaves, the camera pans to show the fresh graves of Hannah and Ellie next to Tommy's.
- Heal It with Booze: Hannah is shot is in the arm while escaping from the bank robbery. When she stops to tend her injuries, she takes a swig from a bottle of high proof liquor to dull the pain and then pours some on the wound to disinfect it.
- Impaled Palm: During the final fight between Ellie and Wes, Ellie lunges at Wes with her stiletto. Wes, who is lying on the floor, holds up his hand to fend her off and the blade goes straight through his palm.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Ellie's Sanity Slippage turns her into this as the movie progresses, leading to her doing things like yanking her mask down during a bank robbery, thereby exposing her identity and revealing that the robbers were women, and throwing dynamite between the two groups during the tense standoff between Hannah and Wes, triggering a Blast Out.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The gang of bank robbers wear elaborate hoods that conceal their entire heads, to point where the only thing witnesses can describe about the robbers is the hoods.
- Murder by Mistake: Hannah shoots and kills the General, who is Wes's father, during her initial killing spree when she is taking vengeance on those who raped her. As she later tells Wes, she was in a blind rage and only saw another uniform; not knowing that the General was attempting to round up the renegades responsible for the sacking of Silver Creek.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: 'Widow' Wilson says that she has been called 'Widow' for so long that she no longer remembers what her given name was.
- Psycho Lesbian: Ellie has an intense hatred of men after being raped, and is jealously possessive of her lover Hannah, trying to kill anyone who threatens to come between. By the end she is even trying to kill the gang's Team Mom for preventing her from killing a man they were robbing, and would rather both she and Hannah die than be split up.
- Psycho Knife Nut: Ellie is obsessed with knives. She starts the massacre of the Posse by stabbing one of the deputies with a stiletto she keeps in her boot. Afterwards, she makes certain they are all dead by slitting their throats with a Bowie knife. She takes her time over the first one, obviously relishing it, until Hannah tells her quit wasting time and get on with it.
- Psycho Party Member: Ellie is a Psycho Lesbian Knife Nut as a result of having been gang-raped by Confederate militia during the Civil War. Most of time, her lover Hannah is able to keep her under control. However, when she starts to think that she losing Hannah, and especially when Hannah is separated from the rest of the gang during their escape, she becomes increasingly violent and unstable. She vows to kill the gang's Team Mom for preventing her from murdering an unarmed man they were robbing, and tries to make good on her vow while the Widow is sleeping. By the end, she lobbing lit sticks of dynamite into the showdown between the gang and the posse and not caring who she kills.
- Public Bathhouse Scene: Following their massacre of the Posse that was chasing them, the Angels stop in the next town they come and visit a Chinese bathhouse to clean up and relax. Several of them sexually harass the male bathhouse attendant.
- Rape and Revenge: Hannah, Ellie and the Widow were all raped by the soldiers who attacked Silver Creek. In the aftermath, Hannah and Ellie get their hands on guns and kill all of the soldiers responsible (and one who wasn't). Hannah later uses what happened to her as justification for the bank robberies the gang commits, but the Widow realizes (even if Hannah doesn't) that they have crossed a line from revenge to simple banditry.
- Rape and Switch: It is strongly implied that the reason Ellie is a lesbian is because her first sexual experience was being raped by Sociopathic Soldiers.
- Rape Leads to Insanity: After being gang-raped by Confederate militia during the Civil War, Ellie becomes a Psycho Lesbian knife user who is easily the most bloodthirsty member of the gang, and who takes a special pleasure in killing men slowly with her blades.
- Sanity Slippage: Ellie suffers a slow breakdown over the course of the move, becoming more and more bloodthirsty and unstable. It eventually reaches the point where Hannah realises that the only way to stop her will be to kill her.
- Signature Item Clue: Wes finds his father's medal dropped at the scene of a bank robbery and knows that the gang who robbed the bank are the same ones who killed his father during the war.
- Sociopathic Soldier: The Confederate militia who raze Silver Creek, killing the men and children and raping the women, in the dying days of the Civil War.
- Unorthodox Holstering: One of the female outlaws keeps a full-sized pistol holstered at the back of her thigh under her shift. Admittedly this is only useful when she is wearing nothing but a shift but, when she is, absolutely no one expects her to have a gun there.
- Water Wake Up: Wes captures the unconscious Hannah and later wakes her up by dumping her in a muddy waterhole.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Ellie's accents slides from English to French to east coast US without ever getting close to Texan, which is what she is supposed to be.note
- You Killed My Father: Wes is searching for the people who killed his father during the Civil War, believing them to be band of renegade soldiers who fled after the murder. When he finally gets on the trail of the killers, he discovers he is very wrong about their identity.
