As if Roma Downey cared at all, this crude series using her hit TV series of yore (the one memorably co-starring singer Della Reese) as its hook is an intermittently funny and/or arousing stunt that probably would play best if one invited over some of the guys to sit around, drink beer and mildly heckle. Pornographer Jerome Tanner never takes himself or his work too seriously and this is the result.
First stumbling block, and I admit that it almost killed my will to continue and not hit the eject button, is casting Chicago-born porn stud Valentino in the lead role of the Angel/Pimp. I had seen Valentino in dozens of European productions, ranging from starring in Sarah Young classics to routinely popping up in Joe D'Amato junkers. So his re-introduction as an American Black homeboy here is disconcerting.
Valentino's attempt at jive-talk that would make even Max Julien of the ground- breaking Blaxploitation film "The Mack" blush. He's clownish and embarrassing as the pimp who saves a girl from suicide only to pimp her out for redemption, turning the video into a joke. The basic plot line is stolen from "It's a Wonderful Life" (why not?) rather than "Touched by an Angel".
But the beautiful women who co-star, led by the divine Gwen Summers plus bombastic Miko Lee and Briana Banks, make this a watchable exercise. Casting Miko as a blind whore named Suzie turns tastelessness on its head. Garish costumes and sets complete the picture, as auteur Tanner doesn't want anyone watching to forget how phony and silly it all is. His sincerity stops at the task of delivering hot XXX content, adhering to the same marching orders that now, two decades later, 99% of 21st Century pornographers believe in their hearts: nothing matters except the sex.
I'm looking forward to suffering through the sequels, to see how thin the fantasy premise can be stretched. In a sense it's no more foolish to believe God would send a pimp down to Earth to save souls than to fall for the thousands of years in the making balderdash that bible-thumping religious folks claim to believe.
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