Movie Review: LEFT BEHIND

Let me start off by saying that this isn't the highly popular and successful God's Not Dead, which--bonus!--featured the Newsboys. This movie also obviously had a bigger budget than The Encounter, though I'm not so sure it has as big a heart as that little film. It didn't have the emotional impact of The Passion of the Christ, nor the beauty and excitement of The Bible as presented by the History Channel. Both of those films, too, left Hollywood dazed and unable to comprehend their success with the public. I did find this version much better done than the original Left Behind, which was released 14 years ago, with Kirk Cameron (who, as most know, is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ) as reporter Buck Williams.

Didn't read the series the movie's based on? That's okay; I only read one, myself, and that was Glorious Appearing. Still, I was very excited about this new Left Behind coming out. I also know from surfing the Internet that some Christians were suspicious of the choice to cast Nicolas Cage in the role of Captain Rayford Steele. (Now how's THAT for a romance hero name! Ha! Sorry, I couldn't resist.) I had no such problem because my husband and I have always liked him as an actor. Yes, he plays some crazies at times, but Nicolas Cage has always had this knack for playing characters with a quiet sadness about them, a touch of sweetness. If you get the chance, rent Moonstruck, It Could Happen to You, or Peggy Sue Got Married, and see if he doesn't make you fall in love with his character. Even in some of his later works, that vulnerable and tender quality is there.

And it's there in this movie, too...once we get past the Captain Romeo of the Skies portion. 

Basically, this story is about an airline pilot whose daughter, Chloe (played here by Cassi Thompson) comes home to surprise him for his birthday. This family's been through a lot of changes, and it seems to have been brought about by Mrs. Steele's (the lovely Lea Thompson in that role) acceptance of the Lord as her Savior. She has only been a Christian for a year, and supposedly that has caused problems between her and Captain Romeo, though the writers don't do an adequate job of depicting that, since Ray Steele is very respectful when talking about his wife. He even got chuckles from our audience last night when he said (paraphrased), "If she had to leave me for another man, why not Jesus?" 

Mom's relationship with Christ DOES form a wedge between her and her daughter. We don't know what Chloe's actually majoring in; we're just told she's in college. At the airport she meets Buck Williams, who's catching the plane that Dad's flying. That conversation reveals some things about both characters and the plot. Chad Michael Murray did a great job in the role originally played by Kirk Cameron. As Christians, both I and my husband were taken aback by a scene at the very beginning involving a Christian woman looking to debate Buck about current events and how they relate to the end times. Chloe "defends" him, though both women come off as petty and trying to one-up each other, and for a supposedly Christian film, we're given a "crazy Christian lady" straight out of a Stephen King novel. It seemed mocking in nature, and just didn't feel right.

But anyway, Dad takes the flight and misses his b-day celebration, but he's really having a secret tryst to London with his middle-age crisis fling, Hattie Durham. (Buck Williams; Rayford Steele. Why does the gorgeous, flirtatious, young blonde have a name like "Hattie?" Do you know anybody with the name "Hattie" under 75 years old?) But let's go on. Chloe has an argument with Mom, who DOES come across as a sincere and loving Christian who wants her family to be saved, and all of us have had similar conversations with our loved ones, so that was very realistic. But Chloe is not ready to make that decision; she gets angry and goes out for a while, taking her younger brother (Ramie?) with her to the mall. Her brother's a little guy, she's about 20, 21 or so, and their brief relationship is loving and a sweet part of the movie. Dad's about 37,000 feet up in the air, and both he and Kirk--sorry, Buck! I still missed the lovable Kirk Cameron in this!--are on their way to London.

Then the Lord takes His bride from the earth, and that includes babies, kids and those believers who are ready. Incidentally, some non-Christian reviewers had a real problem with that, saying, in effect, "God takes all those goody-goody Christians and leaves the rest of us to fend for ourselves during the tribulation." I should also add, some believers don't believe in the Rapture, or they believe it will be mid-Trib, post-Trib, etc. Here's how to remedy all that: Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and JUST BE READY. "So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation is near!" -- Luke 21:28, NLT. Just in case, BE READY.

That's when Left Behind goes into full swing. I won't spoil anything for you, even if you've seen the original, because this doesn't totally follow the original. There are some light, humorous moments provided by one particular passenger, and one scene with Jordin Sparks that makes no sense at all, which seems to have been written in just to give Jordin Sparks something to do. She does look beautiful, though, and she sings the closing song.

All in all, I'm going to give Left Behind 3 1/2 stars out of 5. Despite some of its problems, it does entertain, Nicolas Cage does give a solid performance, as do Cassi Thompson and Chad Michael Murray, and the little that we see of Lea Thompson. As a Christian, it also does manage to make you take a moment from this physical world we're living in, with all its strife, suffering, and violence, and it reminds you to stand and look up, because the Lord is coming back. That makes it a movie worth seeing. One last note: It was, by far, MUCH better than the drippingly sweet and poorly done, Heaven is For Real.

And for a more in-depth review, which was also fair, funny, and well done, check out Christian Geek Central's video.

Free Ebook for ONE WEEK

If you haven't already read ONE SWEET DAY, my novel that spans four decades about a group of believers awaiting the rapture, it's going for FREE (the ebook version) from now until next Saturday.

I should add: It's free on Smashwords, and now apparently on Itunes and Kobo, too.

Very few of my books are in paperback version, but ONE SWEET DAY, which is a longer length book at over 70,000 words, happens to be one of the ones that is. So if you read the ebook version and would like to purchase it as a gift for a friend (Christmas is coming, just sayin' :D) or your church library, you can find it here on Amazon.

Enjoy! Hurry, because the ebook version returns to full price next Sunday!

Excerpt from ONE SWEET DAY

(Though this book has been out since January of this year, I realized I've never offered an excerpt. In anticipation of the release of LEFT BEHIND, starring Nicolas Cage, here it is.)

Why was he driving the hearse? That was Jason Nolan’s job. Tremayne worked in the office, consoling families and helping them with the arrangements. Mark Wagner had also been training him to do other things, but driving wasn’t one of them. Now, for some reason, he had the keys to the hearse.

“Tremayne, come here—look at this! Something’s wrong.”

He followed his boss’ voice to the rear of the vehicle. What was Mr. Wagner doing there?

Even stranger, the funeral director and three other people Tremayne didn’t recognize were surrounding an open casket, which had been tossed unceremoniously onto the floor. The carriage that was supposed to transport it to the grave was nowhere in sight.

“Oh, Lord,” Tremayne said as calmly as he could manage. “Where is the deceased?”

“He was in the casket.” One of the other men sounded nervous. “You saw him, didn’t you? I know I saw him. He was in there. Now he’s not. He’s not there, but he was…”

Tremayne squinted at him. What sort of roundabout, nonsensical talk was that? And who was the man, because he didn’t recall ever seeing him before?

Was this even really happening? Or was it a dream? It couldn’t have been a dream because a woman on a bike swerved just in time before colliding with him. A biker disrespecting a funeral procession? So, so strange.

“Hey!” he hollered. “Be careful!”

An older gentleman passing him stopped and pushed his hat further back on his head.

“Hurry, son,” the man urged him. “He’s coming, He’s coming! Hurry.”

“Who’s coming?”

Tremayne didn’t wait for an answer, and even if he had, the man was gone.

And he knew the answer. He knew it instinctively.

With the funeral forgotten, he followed the crowd. His heart beat faster with fear and anticipation. Anticipation, because he was starting to understand what was happening. Fear, because he couldn’t believe his eyes: Several of the graves he was passing had been disturbed. Headstones had been toppled over. Graves were open, revealing fresh, soft earth, with rocks strewn in between. Caskets, long buried, torn open.

Open…and empty.

This was it. Tremayne knew it in his heart. He moved from a fast walk to a sprint.

He recognized that hill. It was actually nowhere near the cemetery; it was the same hill that had been behind his childhood home, where he and his brother had been raised together. By his estimation, there were tens of thousands of people—or more—on that hill, hurrying to climb it. Even with all those people, he spotted Lita in the distance. She smiled and waved at him.

“Wait for me, Lita!” he cried. Her face was almost angelic, beaming, and she was dressed in a pristine white robe.

“The blessed hope, Tremayne!” she called back. “The rapture. Oh, Jesus, my Lord—”

For that moment, he looked away from her to the sky.

It looked like the heavens were opening like a scroll. That brought to mind the words of an old hymn: “And Lord, haste the day, when my faith shall be sight; the clouds be rolled back as a scroll…”

It was as if the clouds were pushed away by an invisible hand and ribbons of color appeared in the sky. Ribbons of gold, of red, purple, every shade of blue, green.

Tremayne couldn’t move. His feet might as well have been bolted to the ground. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life as that sky.

The rapture. This was the rapture.

The blessed hope.

The day that had come, as Jesus had told His disciples, as “a thief in the night.”

Abruptly, Tremayne opened his eyes. He swallowed hard and found that his throat was dry. His right arm was hanging over the side of the bed, and Duke was licking his hand. The puppy wanted to be let out in the backyard to do his business.

“Okay, boy, okay. Give me a second,” Tremayne mumbled with a sigh.

He always wore his checkered pajama bottoms and a short-sleeved T-shirt, that one bearing the name of a local apple orchard, to bed. Tucking his feet into his slippers, Tremayne shuffled down the stairs with the dog in tow.

Opening the back door, he let Duke out and looked out into the backyard. He and Lita had talked about buying a grill for the patio, along with one of those outdoor table and chairs, so they could have friends and family over for hot dogs and cheeseburgers. Eventually, they’d put up a swing set when their children came along.

No rapture yet, he thought, surprised by that flicker of disappointment.

No rapture. Just that present life, with its pain and its suffering, with its wars and hunger and violence and hatred.

But that life wasn’t without its blessings, too. Life on earth had brothers whose big dreams sometimes managed to come true, and mouth-watering, seven-layer cakes were baked by loving, beautiful future brides. And a job that perhaps wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but which he enjoyed because it allowed him to help families, treating them with respect and kindness, during a difficult and heartbreaking time in their lives.

The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend; even so, it is well with my soul.

“Not time yet, I guess, Father,” he prayed under his breath. “But maybe in our lifetime. Only You know.”

New Goodreads Giveaway: ONE SWEET DAY in PAPERBACK!

Now in paperback--so that you can read it on the beach or by the pool this summer, or give it as a gift, or buy it to pass on to your friends--is my newest novel, ONE SWEET DAY. And to get the word out, I'm giving away 3 copies on Goodreads! Starting tonight until February 21, you can click on the link above to enter. Each copy will be personally autographed for its winner. So good luck, readers!

And before I forget, I've been at work on developing a new Christian romance series. More info will follow, but as it stands right now, it looks like this will be a 3-book series.

For now, enjoy ONE SWEET DAY!

It's Here--My January Release!

Available now on Amazon & Smashwords, here is ONE SWEET DAY! Look for it on Barnes & Noble's Nook this week, too! Hoping to have it ready in paperback shortly, too.

So get your copy & enjoy!

Background for ONE SWEET DAY

Thanksgiving and Christmas both slowed me down a bit, but with the first draft of ONE SWEET DAY finally done, I'm able to give a background--and a bit of a disclaimer, too--for this book.

Firstly, I've always had a passionate interest in the study of Christian end-time prophecies, or Christian eschatology. And yet when the Lord first placed it on my heart to write this book, even before I wrote GREETINGS FROM MY SANDY DREAMS, my response to Him in prayer was, Lord, I'm not a scholar. I'm not qualified to write a book about what happens in Revelations!

So I delayed with not one but TWO books before writing this one. I published the beach read but my laptop battery died when I was at the last fourth of the second book, a paranormal called THE VAMPIRE'S MERMAID BRIDE. The following day, at lunchtime, I started writing ONE SWEET DAY by hand, since I couldn't get to the other book, and I figured I would start with an idea that had begun to brew. When I came home that evening I asked my husband if I could borrow his laptop to type out what I'd written. He told me, "Babe, go ahead and use yours--it's working now."

What?? I'd tried for an hour to get the battery to charge. I'd even already started searching for places to buy a replacement battery for a decent price. And Bill just plugs it in and it works, on the same day that I, at last, do what the Lord inspired me to do?

Some may see that as a coincidence, but I took at as a push forward to step out on faith. My campus pastor's wife, only a few weeks later, while speaking about something else at our women's retreat in Myrtle Beach, said the quote, "God doesn't call the qualified--He qualifies the called." That really gave a lot of my beautiful Christian friends at the retreat great encouragement, and that included me.

As it turned out, I had fretted and doubted for nothing. This book is about average believers, spanning about forty years in their lives, their trials, their growth, their sorrow, their joy, as they wait for the Rapture. I never had to worry about which came first--the Antichrist (actually called "The Beast") or the seals being opened or the vials being poured out as documented by the Apostle John during his exile on the island of Patmos. The book only deals with believers watching, praying and waiting for "the blessed hope" while living, growing and learning in this life.

Okay, now you have the background. Here are the disclaimers!

Obviously, I do believe in the Rapture of the Church. Many argue that the word rapture appears nowhere in the word of God. However, you will find the word, harpazo, in the scriptures. It is Greek and it means: to seize, carry off by force; to seize on, claim for oneself eagerly; to snatch out or away.

PLEASE note, too, that ONE SWEET DAY is a work of fiction. I'm not saying it will happen like this, exactly; it's the depiction as I saw it in my imagination. This book is more to encourage and to uplift than to teach about prophecy.

May it bless you right down to your socks! Once again, it will be available January 2014.