Richard Masur is exceedingly creepy as a pedophile who lures youngsters into kiddie-porno films, but this vehicle for his character can't quite create a plot out of these dynamics. Masur's relationship with disenfranchised youth Dana Hill is pseudo-friendly (he's really all business), so it comes as something of a surprise when he tells her near the end that he wants to be her lover. This is not consistent with the character, nor is it likely that Hill would find any revelations shocking at this point. What the movie does well is to show Hill almost absent-mindedly falling into the porn racket, turning her from an innocent latch-key kid into someone hard and manipulative (yet the filmmakers have her go all sweet and soft at the tag, as if finding the culprit repairs most of the damage). "Fallen Angel" isn't a great TV-flick, nor has it proved to be an important one, but it does have some frank dialogue and some emotional and disturbing scenes.
Review of Fallen Angel
