Doomsday Reels: Left Behind

Left Behind (2014)

The Director

Vic Armstrong

The Actors

Nicolas Cage (Rayford Steele), Cassi Thomson (Chloe Steele), Chad Michael Murray (Buck Williams), Nicky Whelan (Hattie Durham), Lea Thomson (Irene Steele), Martin Klebba (Melvin Weir), Alec Rayme (Hassid), Georgina Armstrong (Venice Baxter), Gary Grubbs (Dennis Beese)

The Trailer

The Cause

The Rapture

The Story

"A small group of survivors are left behind after millions of people suddenly vanish and the world is plunged into chaos and destruction." - IMDb synopsis.

The Rundown

My thoughts on Cloud Ten's Left Behind trilogy are now well-documented as well as my thoughts on the book series that spawned them. However, the idea of The Rapture as a way to create an end-world scenario is a very viable when not being handled by people with their heads lodged up their pious asses.

Yes the Rapture scenario is incredibly patronizing and offensive but is that really different from any other doomsday scenario? I can sum up the thesis statement of every single apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic story you have or ever will encounter in the famous words of astronaut George Taylor from Planet of the Apes: "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" No matter the scenario, it's entirely our fault even when it's an outside factor that we had no control over it's the way we handle the new world created by that factor that descends into barbarism. Sure the Rapture-believing evangelicals are looking down their nose at us but so are the people who warn of the nuclear apocalypse, the ecological apocalypse, the robot apocalypse. Who's to blame? Dummies!

But here's the thing, whether the source is spiritual or secular nobody likes being preached to. Some of those early nuclear disaster films sermonize every bit as much as your average faith-based film and though they have a much more realistic and scientifically proven danger it doesn't change the fact that the message is delivered in the patronizing tone of a zookeeper teaching a monkey not to eat fire.

Aside from the offensive and obnoxious nature of the general idea of The Rapture, the main issue with the Left Behind series is that it is written from the perspective of a group of people who cannot and will not understand the viewpoint of those who aren't "saved." There's no form of empathy for those who didn't fully and earnestly convert to Christianity prior to the rapture and the way the story explains away these people's motivations is just as hacky and poorly-thought-out as their shitty 90s paperback thriller names.

Left Behind (the remake) actually does a really good job of fixing the issues of the previous trilogy. We're starting over at square one and this time the scope is even smaller. There's no mention of Israel, no portents of World War III, and the name Nicolae Carpathia is never even alluded to. This is really the story of two people: Airline pilot Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Chloe (Cassie Thomson).

The broad strokes of the original are still there. Mrs. Steele is still a holy roller, Rayford is still cheating on her with a stewardess, Chloe is still having issues with her mother's religious zealotry, and the preacher of her mother's church Pastor Bruce (Lance E. Nichols) is still among those left behind. But the movie actually stops to examine these characters and their motivations.

Irene Steele's religious fervor is brought up as a fairly recent development that has caused a schism in her family. Rayford isn't just cheating because he's a tv-movie dirtbag, it's because he feels like he's lost his wife to what to him seems like a doomsday cult. Similarly Chloe can't understand how her mother can praise the lord every day when it's filled with nightmares of pain and suffering. Admittedly, it's not the deepest they could've gone with this story but the fact that they decided to delve into their minds was a welcome departure after the sunday-school nonsense of the previous films.

Intrepid reporter Buck Williams (Chad Michael Murray) is still on the plane, though the movie seems to acknowledge that "Buck" is a dumb name so he is frequently referred to by his proper name of "Cameron." I'm not familiar enough with this series to recall if Cameron has always been the character's real first name or if this is intended to be an homage to actor Kirk Cameron. Buck's role here has been greatly reduced since the glob-trotting antics of the original book and movie don't play into the plot so he's basically Rayford's de-facto sidekick for most of the movie and the way a lot of expository dialogue gets spoken.

The movie starts with Chloe and Rayford meeting in the airport terminal and then splits in two as Chloe goes to see her mother and little brother and Rayford flies to London. Midway through both arcs The Rapture happens and things go into chaos. In the air the passengers are torn between distraught and violent as they try to figure out what has happened to all their missing friends and family and on the ground everything descends to rioting and looting as Chloe madly searches for her mother and younger brother.

The movie makes sure to show as many grinning cherubic children and adorable babies as possible to really land the gut punch when their caretakers are holding their empty clothing and stuffed animals and screaming in agony. This was one of the few things that really worked about the original and it really worked here.

Chloe's story is really just a means to an end. She wanders through the chaos and barely interacts with anyone except Pastor Bruce, who only has one small scene in this version of the movie, until the film's end when she helps Rayford land the plane. This means that the bulk of the plot takes place on the plane as Rayford and Buck deal with the other passengers and the movies best and worst moments rest on the shoulders of those carriers.

There's a fairly eclectic crew of passengers on Rayford's plane but the only ones really worth noting are Rayford and his stewardess mistress Hattie (Nicky Whelan) and the passengers in first class. Those passengers are Buck Williams, a callous southern billionaire (Gary Grubbs), a Muslim man (Alec Rayme), a spiteful dwarf (Martin Klebba), a conspiracy theorist (Han Soto), a football player's ex-wife (Shasta Carvell), a heroin addict heiress (Georgina Armstrong), and a doddering old lady (Lauren Swinney).

There's a few problems up top, but not as many as you might expect. Perhaps in penance the Muslim man (named Hassid in the credits but not in the dialogue) is handled pretty well. Martin Klebba's character makes accusations that he's responsible but the movie is pretty quick to treat his accusations as dumb and small-minded (there is one cut-away gag that briefly seems to side with him, however.) Hassid is actually a really good-hearted character and a lot of the film's good vibes moments involve him in some way or another.

The real head-scratcher is Klebba himself. The bitter dwarf character has been done in a lot of movies, in fact I'm certain I've seen Martin Klebba himself play this sort of character more than a few times but this movie at its heart is about the inherent goodness of mankind and Klebba's character never stops being a dick. The biggest moment is when Hassid, who has done nothing but eat shit and bend over backward to treat him kindly kicks him down the inflatable slide on the side of the plain, which is kind of a shitty move. To put that in perspective even the rich southern billionaire and the thinly-veiled heroin-addicted Paris Hilton stand-in have been thoroughly humanized by this point. And here we have this guy who's character arc ends with being bodily kicked off a plane.

Chad Michael Murray, Cassie Thomson, and Nicky Whelan all give this movie great performances that it doesn't deserve but we all know why you're here. If you came to this hoping Nicolas Cage was going to scream like a madman through this then I'm sorry to disappoint you. That's not to say that he's wasted in the role either, bloated face and bad hairpiece aside, Nicolas Cage is still every bit a strong and compelling actor as ever. He brings all the pathos and determination to Rayford Steele that Brad Johnson lacked and then some. With its stripped down narrative, Left Behind really is just an airline disaster movie wrapped in a post-apocalyptic narrative so Cage as a grizzled pilot just trying to get what remaining passengers he has to the ground safely is firmly within his wheelhouse.

Left Behind is still not a great movie. The thesis statement is still fundamentally obnoxious even though the movie takes great pains to take the focus away from it. The production values are massively better than the other movies but still only at about the value of a mid-budget action movie. The characters still have stupid names and the story, while vastly approved, is still pretty limp and formless.

With that being said, director Vic Armstrong (continuing the last film's trend of being directed by someone who made a Dolph Lundgren vehicle, Armstrong is the director of Joshua Tree/Army of One) brings some life to this bad idea and he and the writers have managed to sweeten the pill up considerably for consumption. There's still a lot of problems to be had but many of the ugly thematic edges have been sanded down and the movie's not only watchable but even mildly enjoyable. I still don't have any real urge to own it and I doubt you will either but if you simply must watch a Left Behind movie I think this one is the one to see.