“Transit Angel” is a 39-minute short that, at best, has the charming naivete of an ambitious student film. Sort of a combination of the tiresome “Prophecy” series and “The Matrix,” “Angel” is a morality play that manages to sidestep the moral. The plot involves an angel named, cleverly enough, Faith (Maggie Rose Fleck) who has the curious job of watching over the sad and conflicted at a transit station. Fortunately for her, the people that she watches over carry on internal first-person monologues about themselves, clearly spelling out who they are and their various problems.

Faith, looking like a goth Carrie-Anne Moss (complete with sunglasses) follows an actress (Sarah Ing) late for an audition. Not only is our actress late, she feels she’s too fat for the job anyway. In addition to her insecurities, she once had a great gig as the spokesperson for Snap fruit drink, but that all came crashing down once the company went bankrupt after someone found a chicken head in one of the bottles. Now she has the dubious distinction of being known as the “chicken head in the fruit drink girl.” Faith’s ingenious idea of intervention is to sneak a note in the actress’s pocket that reads: “have faith.” Little does the goodly angel know that evil demon Destamon (David K. Hart) also donning the all-black w/sunglasses look, has been following her. When Chicken Head in the Fruit Drink Girl randomly runs into a b-movie actress (Katy Medders) and her more famous friend Starr (Jamie Kern), Faith bestows a friendship blessing on all three. Upset that the angel has blessed the women, Destamon naturally follows the most famous one to inflict some damage. This amounts to putting a gun in the backseat of her car just before a meeting with a philandering boyfriend. The scenario ends badly. Destamon soon has a funny exchange with his leader Darkus (gotta love the subtlety with the names...) who looks a lot like a backyard spook house devil. The horn-headed cackler gives his minion a special sword that will kill the goodly transit spirit. At the grave of Starr’s philandering boyfriend, Destamon challenges Faith to fight him at the angel’s battlefield. If she refuses, he will continue to disrupt her blessings of the transit people. What in heaven’s name will she do?

There are certain aspects of “Angel” that do work within its limited scope. Though the story structure is uneven, there is a modicum of tension created with the strong score and a few smart editing choices. Writer/director/producer John Christian (who also wrote the music) does an adequate job of building a momentum with his unfocussed storyline; “Angel” is never boring. The main problem (aside from the marginal performances) is the script with its underwritten characters and poor dialogue. Much of what is spoken is either overly dramatic or randomly comedic. The choice to follow the most sketchily rendered of the three actress characters also seems a bit odd. Why introduce Chicken Head with her bizarre tale of woe, only to leave her at the transit? The aptly named Christian also seems to want to make some sort of grand statement about faith. But faith in what exactly? The unhappy transit characters (including a jobless family man contemplating suicide) aren’t wrestling with faith in any religious context - and seem to learn nothing from their slight interventions. They are touched by an angel only in the most literal sense. The main protagonist is Faith and her only dilemma is whether or not she should fight the demon. Not symbolically, but literally fight him sub-Matrix style. Whatever god is ruling the earth in “Transit Angel” it’s a good bet that it’s not Buddha.

Special features include (and are limited to) a well-edited trailer and a very brief bio of director Christian (which consists of a photograph and copy that identifies him as a boy scout of America).