Ordinary Angels is a pretty safe bet of a film. There's a dying girl. A stubborn and loving father doing his best in the face of adversity. An everyday hero who swoops in Erin Brockovich style and impacts their lives in unimaginable ways.
It makes for very inspiring, heart warming stuff that will be sure to have you reaching for the tissues at some point. It is very much marketed as a tearjerker film and it absolutely delivers on this front.
The filmmaking is probably overly cliche and doesn't really push the boat out too much. It also maybe overstays its welcome slightly with the runtime. These aren't huge issues as the narrative is really the driving force of the film, but these areas could have been tightened up.
The performance from Alan Ritchson is maybe one of the best elements of the film. He really sells it as the hard working father swimming against the tide to keep his family together. Hilary Swank is of course brilliant with a brilliantly written character. Any film with a dying child has the potential to be far too bleak, but her performance and character ensure this is never the case.
So although Ordinary Angels doesn't do anything particularly flash, it tells its story well with a couple of great performances to boot. The emotional core of the story is the real selling point, and this is executed very well making a watch well worth while.
