God bless Christians and their end of the world movies.
Seven backpack nukes, code named The Seven Wonders, have been placed in the U.S. by terrorists as the result of the battle for Jerusalem. FBI Agent Shane Daughtry (David A. R. White, the co-founder of Pure Flix Entertainment, as well as the co-writer and producer of this movie) and agent Eve Rearden (Anna Zielinski) must find these weapons before they destroy the world. Or at least America.
Where does Lee Majors fit in? Well, he’s Arlin Rockwell, the arms dealer who smuggled the weapons into the country. There’s also a Russian-Iranian terror cell called The Revolution of God, Stacy Keach as a retired G-Man and Randy Travis, of all people, as the Deputy Director of the CIA. Ironically, there are two different songs in this movie and neither are sung by Travis.
So yeah. A Christian spy epic that I only sat through because I love Lee Majors. I really will watch anything.
Do You Believe? is kind of like Magnolia without the raining frogs, good music or characters that you actually worry and care about.
It’s the tale of a preacher who meets a street prophet who shakes him to the core.
And then you realize, hey, that street priest is Delroy Lindo and wow, the cast of this movie and the next thing you know, you’ve wasted an entire 115 minutes watching this.
The creators of God’s Not Dead got together a truly heavenly cast for this movie that’s kind of like Crash because it also has a car crash in it.
There’s Sean Astin as a kindly doctor, just holding out until he can get famous again when a monster from the Upside Down disembowels him! Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino! Alexa PenaVega from Spy Kids! Shark jumper Ted McGinley as that priest who has lost his faith! Cybill Shepherd, certainly in a place she never saw herself being in! Lee Majors, our reason for watching so many movies that we would have never watched if we weren’t doing a week of films in his honor! Brian Bosworth, who certainly deserves better! A rapper named Shwayze!
Look, I realize that a kid who grew up with apeirophobia — fear of eternity — and ouranophobia — fear of heaven — is not going to be the audience for this movie. Yet I know that Christian cinema can make astounding stuff like Ron Ormond’s films and A Thief In the Night. Why do contemporary Pure Flix movies play it so safe?
Let me tell you what. One of my rules of films that no matter how little I want to watch a movie by its description, if Brian Trenchard-Smith directed it, chances are I’m going to love it.
A Christian end times movie based on the Left Behind series? I should despise this.
But there’s Trenchard-Smith’s name. And wait — Udo Keir playing a demon? Michael York having the absolute time of his life as the Antichrist? Michael Biehn as his heroic brother? Franco Nero as a general? R. Lee Ermey as the President? An appearance by Chad Michael Murray?
Yeah, I loved it.
This movie defines gigantic scope, but made on the budget of a TV episode and featuring CGI that looks Playstation 1 level in quality. It even has intros by various members of the Trinity Broadcasting Network giving testimony to its high quality. Dude, what kind of world do I live in where religious rich men give the maker of Turkey Shootmoney to make movies about the end of the world?
There were so many moments during this film where I jumped around like a small child, throwing myself all over our movie room. This is the kind of film that I want more people to recognize, find and love.
To make it even better, Michael York wrote a journal while acting in this, Dispatches fromArmageddon, and it became a book.
Also, imagine my glee realizing that this movie is basically a prequel and remake — I should have guessed because it had a number in the name — called The Omega Code. York also plays the Antichrist in a movie released by GoodTimes Entertainment.
That film has Casper Van Dien, Catherine Oxenberg, Michael Ironside and a soundtrack by Alan Howarth and Harry Manfredini, which, quite frankly, is blowing my mind right now. Even better, the original website has been saved by the Internet Archive and it is everything that a 1999 website should be.
“The Christian community has kind of left the art world on the back burner. My vision would be them treating the art world, the film world, with the same sense of urgency as they’re treating, for instance, an overseas mission. . . . This is an emergency for our culture, to be able to influence our film, our arts, the American pop culture in this way [through Christianity].” — Director T Jara Morgan, in an interview with Life Site News
Ah, those ’90s-halcyon Miramax and Fox Searchlight days of driving to an outside-of-the-big-city six-plex with a screen or two dedicated foreign films. Films that you had to see that week — that Friday, in fact — before the manager, seeing the low box office, banished the celluloid from the silver screen, for the film never to be known beyond a few film dorks: like moi.
In the case of this feature film debut by writer-director T Jara Morgan, his Argentinian-shot, music-driven comedic adventure has bounced around the worldwide festival and indie circuit since 2012. And finally, thanks to the fine folks at Indie Rights Films (who always seem to be rescuing just the right films from celluloid obscurity to digital recognition), A Band of Rogues finally makes its well-deserved U.S. streaming and hard-media bow.
Hey, but wait second . . . all of these actors, as well as director T Jara Morgan, hail from Atlanta, Georgia, in the good ‘ol U.S.A. Uh, okay, so . . . then we’re reliving the ’90s-halcyon Miramax and Fox Searchlight days of driving to an outside-of-the-big-city six-plex with a screen or two dedicated to indie films. Films that you had to see that week — that Friday — before the film vanished from the silver screen.
In other words: Different film genre, but the same ol’ hard-road-to-mainstream-distribution travels for the non-Tinseltown film.
And the jailer man and sailor Sam, were searching everyone.
As a film academic and critic, I watch a lot of (new) films — and I end up not reviewing more that I review. Sadly, while I realize the writers and directors behind each and every film I watch have depleted their internal organs and inner essence into their digital images, there are just some films that I can’t get behind; there is no common good served by eviscerating the vision of a filmmaker: I ain’t Roger Ebert nor Rex Reed. I’m R.D Francis and R.D don’t play that.
But then . . . along comes A Band of Rogues: an obscure film on the run that deserves to be seen. Reviewing T Jara Morgan’s IMDb page, while he is still producing various video products for television and other outlets, he hasn’t made another feature in the ensuing nine years of the first festival appearance of A Band of Rogues. And that’s a shame. For a director to transition from two short films, to creating a film with an all-original soundtrack of songs (crafted by brother-producer Matthew D. Morgan and actor Luke Micheal Williams) tailored specifically to the character’s personalities and plotting of the film and — with a László Kovácian eye — expertly capture the Argentinean countryside to convey an analogy of the South American expanse to one’s spiritual freedom, is a film that deserves to be experienced.
As with his Christian message-based shorts that are worthy of investing your fifteen minutes, A Band of Rogues is a bit more quiet of a film; a not-so-heavy-handed, faith-based tale regarding the fate of one’s decisions, the importance of the guidance of friendship, and discovering your moral compass that a mass audience — both religious and non — can enjoy. No matter your belief system, man requires faith to survive. Faith has nothing to do with God. It has to do with man. Faith is what keeps us, keeping on. We all have to believe in an endgame to have purpose in our lives. And you can never have enough films pushing that message.
“Live a good life. For you. For me. For both of us.” — Gabriel Consisco
It’s always five o’clock somewhere, even in Argentina.
Our “rogues” are a trio of American indie musicians touring their latest album in Argentina — when they’re arrested for drug possession (pot, coke, prescription drugs) and property damage at their hotel. Unable to make financial restitution, and to escape deportation to the U.S. where they’d be locked up for their prior drug records, they accept sentencing to a rehab center for six weeks before their court date. But since these “Ugly Americans” can’t assimilate nor contribute to the rehab’s society, they’ll be kicked out and sent to prison by the end of their first week. So the band decides, with the help of Gabriel, a sympathetic, English-speaking native Argentinean (standout Italian-Argentine actor Leonardo Santaiti of the Divergent series), to shanghai an old kitchen-delivery truck and make a (causal) run for the Chilean border.
The most fascinating aspect of A Band of Rogues is, that unlike most indie films about an indie rock band’s adventures, the film’s music isn’t just plopped into the film willy-nilly: our wayward musician’s personal stories unfold as chapters analogous to one of the tracks on their album — a Beatlesesque acoustic album rife with ukuleles, mandolins, and upright basses, just like the indie ’90s used to make.
Dude, I really enjoyed this movie — and its music. It made me laugh. It made me smile. It made me contemplate. It made me remember my radio and band roadie days. A Band of Rogues is filmmaking at its finest brought to us from an exemplary contingent of filmmakers, actors and musicians who deserve bigger and better things in their respective careers. Remain encouraged, ye mighty band of analog and celluloid rogues. Keep that Tinseltown faith alive, my brothers, for we all walk a common road in our love of telling stories.
Courtesy of the You Tube page of Rocky Farm Studios, we discovered two of Morgan’s shorts: Volition(2008) and The Life of a Ditchdigger (2006). His third short is All the World is Crying Out (2007). You can learn more about T Jara Morgan’s work at his official website. You can keep up with the latest on A Band of Rogues courtesy of Indie Rights Films and at the film’s official Facebook page and website. You can stream the film on Amazon Prime or as a newly-debuted free with-ads stream on TubiTV, and enjoy the original soundtrack on Apple Tunes and Amazon Music.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes short stories and music reviews on Medium.
Disclaimer: We did not receive a review request for this film. We discovered the trailer on social media, were intrigued by the film, and requested a screener. We truly enjoyed the film.
Kevin Sorbo played Hercules on TV and in the movies, he’s been Kull and the star of a series of Walking Tall movies. He’s also a nondenominational Christian who believes that his religious views have hurt his career.
“There’s a negativity towards Christians in Hollywood, and a negativity towards people who believe in God,” said Sorbo. He also considers himself politically independent, saying that he voted for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. He also endorsed Donald Trump for President, claiming that “Jesus would have voted for Trump.”
So anyways. He made this movie.
Atheist Dr. Sol Harkens (Sorbo, who directed this film) debates a Christian leader, but more like destroys him on stage. Then he heads off to a party where he slams booze and strikes out with his own Russian model girlfriend before driving into a wall on the way home.
That’s when he finds himself in Heaven, where he meets his dead son David. He’s dead for about four minutes, which is an eternity in the afterlife or just enough time for David to tell him, “Let there be light.” This is a moment in our house like the secret word on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. I stand up, scream and throw things any time that someone says the name of the movie within a movie. For Let There Be Light, I exhausted myself. The title is repeated so many times, you’ll start angrily shouting it back at the characters.
That’s when the doctor discovers that he can’t be an atheist any longer. His Christian ex-wife Katy (Sam Sorbo, who co-wrote and co-produced this movie. In addition to playing Serena on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, she was also in Ed and His Dead Mother and is a Pittsburgh native) slowly starts to accept him, even if his kids are divided. Actually, I say that and this movie has no dramatic tension. They pretty much easily take him back.
The moment Dr. Sol proposes to Katy — literally as she’s telling the kids and asking them if it’s OK — she has a seizure because she has a rare form of brain cancer and is about to die.
Dr. Sol reacts to this news with the knowledge that it’s God’s plan. Yes, the man who railed against people when his son died is now cool that his wife is past the point of treatment. God works in mysterious ways.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity shows up and it’s treated as if he’s a bigger deal than Oprah. If I told you that he was an executive producer on this film, that may explain both points of the sentence above.
That’s when our hero has a masterstroke: he wants everyone in the world to shine their lights to the sky at night at the same time so that God can see us. Yes, even the horrible folks in Isis, who this movie takes multiple opportunities to attack.
The night of the Let There Be Light event, the Harkens sing Christmas carols and Dr. Sol’s wife dies in front of everyone. The end.
I wish that you guys could have heard this movie explained to me by my mother-in-law. I really do love the family I married into, but man, they really love films like this. I was in tears the entire time because I kept saying what the next plot twist was as she told me and I was correct every time. Of course the wife dies!
Sorbo brought along Daniel Roebuck (The Fugitive, U.S. Marshalls), character actor Gary Grubbs, Travis Tritt, Dionne Warwick and one-time mobster and now motivational speaker Michael Franzese as Father Vinnie, who is now a made man in the eyes of the Lord. I yelled every one of his lines back to him in Andrew “Dice” Clay’s voice. Ohh!
This was a Sorbo family affair, with even their two kids, Braeden and Shane, playing the kids of the Harkins, Gus and Conner. It’s a natural follow-up to Sorbo’s work in God’s Not Dead.
Much like Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas, making fun of this movie makes me feel like I’m making fun of kids who were only allowed to watch The Waltons and Little House on the Prarie. So, you know, acting like I do pretty much all of the time. The one moment that I enjoyed here was a poster of one of Dr. Harkins’ books, that said that Hercules was more real than Jesus. Cute one, Sorbo family.
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