Ok, first, to set the mood in regards to expectations, let me throw the trailer up here:

A couple things to note that are going to give you an idea of how this movie is going to shake out a) the studio that brought this to the screen is an outfit that specializes in religious-themed offerings, and b) Neal McDonough, the only ‘big name’ in this movie, is a very devout Catholic…devout enough to the point that he doesn’t do sex scenes or kiss people in movies. So, with those two bits of data, lets get into it.

The premise is absolutely nothing you haven’t seen in a hundred movies in this genre. The very short version is that Bad Event happens but theres a rich guy who has been preparing for it and needs a buncha ex-operators to keep the place safe from the unprepared and desperate survivors. Drama ensues.

Although the classic genre bad guys – the cannibal bikers – are absent, we do have a few tropes that are standard for the genre:

• The security guy who wants to take it all over for himself
• The government bureaucrat who wants to seize everything for redistribution
• The we-have-to-help-everyone character oblivious to the risks
• The person who thinks everything will be fine..the government will help us
• The family that gets split up and has no idea where the others are

Into this mix, there’s a couple of subplots that are, presumably, addressed in subsequent episodes (yup, this thing apparently is available as a series)…there’s the two teenagers from different backgrounds who have a chaste budding romance, a kid who may or may not be prescient, other ‘survivalists’ with a camp nearby, and a couple other little subplots that aren’t explored at this point in the movie/series.

I starts out fairly strong. Typical ‘evacuate the city’ scene with traffic, cars out of gas, fist fights at supermarkets, casual violence, etc. Once people arrive at the fortified hillside compound we start in with the scenes that, again, we’ve seen in every movie in this genre: people demanding to be let in, rationing, people in charge butting heads, et, etc.

And, of course, there’s the religious messaging. Now, in some ways it makes sense – its the end of the world, some people are going to be more devout than others and it’s not unreasonable to think that theyre going to say that everyone needs to turn to faith to see them through things. Thats not unrealistic. However the last ten minutes of the movie is where it really drives it home. I’m gonna be a nice guy and give you a spoiler cut. Eject now if you don’t want spoilage.

At the end of the movie, the mostly-practical and mostly-pragmatic patriarch of the compound is injured and out of commission. His wife, the we-must-help-everyone type orders the security team to open the gates and let the tent dwellers camped outside the compound to come in and be fed. A voiceover from the wife goes on with fishes-and-loaves parables about how the unprepared survivors they let in helped to make the gardens grow and everyone was able to eat and all was good Because.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting there thinking how much I’d love to see a “30 days later” tag appear showing the place completely destroyed and overrun with more refugees who, upon hearing that these people were letting in the homeless refugees, decided to flood in there and overwhelm things. But, locking out people and letting them starve wouldn’t fit the ‘my brothers keeper’ narrative that they shoehorned in there at the end. Its a noble and lovely sentiment but when you have limited resources and you throw open the gates to everyone, it’s only a matter of time before you’re a refugee as well. Assuming youre not dead from someone shooting you for the food…or just because theyre vicious animals who want what you have.

And, by the way, how exaclty did all these people find out that this little estate was a beacon of preparedness in the first place?

This movie was shot on a budget of $8 million which probably was spent on Crye plate carriers and tweaked out butch-looking tricked out ‘technical’-style pickup trucks. Production values weren’t bad. The acting, however, was a bit wooden. And the fella playing the local bureaucrat who demanded the main character’s food and gun licenses was so hammy in his portrayal I couldn’t be sure if he was just a bad actor or a good actor trying to be over-the-top.

There’s also a couple ‘Actors of Color’ in there that I genuinely think are only there to keep the movie from being labelled as ‘White supremacist propaganda’. But that couuld just be the cynic in me.

Look, its a fun movie just for the sake of watching an LA SWAT team getting hosed from a belt-fed .30 with tracers. But you’re going to sit there clenching your jaw to keep from screaming “No!” at the screen every time someone does something that you or I would consider a bad move.

Nice gear, nice guns, nice ideas, but this movie was trying to be too many different movies at once – an action movie, a YA movie (Young Adult), a drama, a preachy moralistic movie….pick one and stick with it. Clearly this is a labor of love movie for those involved…they’ve a message they want to get out there, and I can respect that. But honestly I’d get more enjoyment and better writing from Season One of “Jericho”.

If you do see this thing, sit around for the post-move credit scenes teasing the subsequent online episodes. I may watch one just to see if things get better but I don’t have high hopes.

It’s difficult to break new ground in this genre. “Jericho” did it by being first to the network with a series, and they had to include some conspiracy elements. ‘The Walking Dead’ broke new ground by having the gore and violence afforded to non-network channels. But if you’re going to bring something new out now you need to offer something that hasn’t been seen much before…you need something to make you stand out from all the other series. “The Last Of Us” would be just another zombie show if it weren’t for its rather good acting and that it takes place twenty years after the apocalypse…all these other ones are contemporaneous to the beginning of their particular apocalypse. TLOU also had the advantage, like Resident Evil, of coming in with a built-in fanbase from the video games.

I knew going in this was going to be a bad movie, but I wanted to see it anyway because even with the heavy-handed moralist  bit at the end, I wanted to support any movie that puts out the idea of being prepared.

I’m not gonna say don’t see this movie, but I will say that what the trailer shows and what the movie delivers may not be exactly the same. Keep your expectations low (very low) and you might enjoy it.