Before there was Left Behind there was... Left Behind

While watching The Remaining -- a fitfully exciting indie thriller best described as a Christian horror flick -- I couldn't help thinking about Left Behind. No, not the upcoming Nicolas Cage movie due in theaters Oct. 3. Rather, I mean an earlier film drawn from the same source material -- a series of popular books by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins -- but produced on a significantly smaller budget.

As I wrote in my original 2001 review:

Kirk Cameron, all grown up since his days on TV’s Growing Pains, plays Buck Williams, a TV news reporter who always manages to be where the action is. In the opening scenes, he just happens to be in Israel, interviewing a scientist who has found a way to grow food in arid land, when Iraqi fighter jets suddenly darken the sky.

Fortunately – well, OK, miraculously – the invaders are blasted to kingdom come even before the Israeli air force can launch a counterattack. Later, our hero is aboard a commercial airliner piloted by workaholic captain Rayford Steele (Brad Johnson) when the long-awaited, Biblically-prophesized “rapture” occurs. Dozens of passengers (including every child on board) simply vanish from the plane, leaving behind clothing, frantic parents and discombobulated fellow flyers. Tens of millions of similar vanishings occur throughout the world, though Left Behind -- obviously hampered by budgetary restraints -– can offer only fleeting glimpses of the collateral damage caused by this phenomenon.

Steele returns to his Chicago home to find his deeply religious wife and their young son are among the missing, and his college-age daughter, Chloe (Janaya Stephens), is terribly upset. Slowly, reluctantly, Steele begins to suspect that his wife, their son and millions of other folks have been brought to heaven by God to avoid the horrors of “end days.” (Not to be confused with End of Days, which millions of people managed to avoid without God’s help.) Williams takes a different route to solving the mystery of the missing millions. But he reaches the same conclusion after he links a couple of international bankers and a possible Antichrist to that notorious hotbed of ungodly and one-worldly activity, the United Nations.

Aimed squarely at that segment of the Christian community that eagerly (perhaps impatiently) awaits the Final Judgment, Left Behind is a pulpy melodrama that does a reasonably efficient job of preaching to the converted. (To damn it with faint praise: It’s much better crafted than The Omega Code, a similar doomsday drama about the emergence of the Antichrist.) Trouble is, it’s no great shakes as secular entertainment.

As it turned out, the 2001 Left Behind proved to be a career game-changer for Cameron, who has gone on to star in several other Christian-skewing dramas -- including Fireproof, which, no joke, was one of the highest-grossing indie releases of 2008. Will the new Left Behind have a similarly salutary effect on Nicholas Cage's career? Well, the Lord does work in mysterious ways...

Here's what The Rapture looked like back in the 2001 Left Behind:


And here's a glimpse at what the new Left Behind has in store for us:

Fireproof

The most financially successful American independent movie of 2008 didn’t premiere at Sundance, didn’t earn any Academy Award nominations, and didn’t amass honorable mentions on dozens of Ten Best lists. But none of that really mattered: Fireproof – the latest small-budget act of faith by Sherwood Pictures, an indie production company operated by pastors Alex and Stephen Kendrick of the Sherwood Church in Albany, Ga. – grossed $33 million without ever playing in more than 1,000 U.S. theaters at the same time.

To put that figure in context: It’s more than the combined gross of the critically acclaimed, Oscar-nominated indies Frozen River, The Visitor, In Bruges and Rachel Getting Married.

What makes this surprise success story all the more extraordinary is that, much like Flywheel (2003) and Facing the Giants (2006), two previous Sherwood productions, Fireproof is a faith-based drama made with a mostly volunteer cast and crew, aimed squarely, but by no means exclusively, at moviegoers who value churchgoing over trend-spotting.

Former teen idol and sitcom star Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains) gives a genuinely compelling lead performance as Caleb, a work-obsessed firefighter on the verge of divorce from his neglected wife. Can this marriage be saved? Only if Caleb takes the advice of his born-again father and commits to "The Love Dare" -- not a TV game show, as its name might imply, but a 40-day, Bible-inspired program designed to help spouses restore frayed ties.

Cameron, an evangelical Christian who also has starred in movies based on the Rapture-themed Left Behind novels, remains eager to spread the good word about Fireproof. Just in time for this week’s release of the movie on home video, he recently answered a few burning questions about the improbably hot property. My interview is here.