By turns paranoid and pollyanna-ish, “Homestead” is a conservative Christian survivalist wish fulfillment fantasy about living through “The End.”
The studio that brought us the controversial “Sound of Freedom” serves up an almost bipolar picture packed with MAGA virtue signaling — gun fetishizing, “authority” defying, law-ignoring, a might-makes-right mindset fueled by Black Rifle Coffee, the unofficial brew of Jan. 6.
This theatrical-release pilot to an Angel Studios series covers the same ground that many a post-apocalyptic thriller before it does, leaning more into a “Trigger Effect” and “The Day After” debacle than anything brought on by zombies.
But I was reminded of “The Walking Dead” in the drab, soap operatic way this extraordinary situation — a “bomb” that exploded off California — leads to a normalizing of societal breakdown and bunker mentality. Just hole up in a compound with family and ex-military folks and the rich oligarch who “hired” them until the dust clears, FEMA shows up or, wettest wingnut dream of all, civilization has to be rebuilt along their ways of thinking and on their blood-lines.
No, it’s not helpful that this wingnut agitprop comes out mere weeks after the non-fiction thriller “The Order,” where an earlier generation of cultish “preppers” tried to trigger the sort of social collapse that “Homestead” whitewashes.
The Christian messaging that Angel Studios is famous for is almost an afterthought — a furtive blurt of prayer as a mother (Susan Misner) and her kids fleeing the West Coast abandon their car and steal a van at a mobbed gas station, “Why did we buy a Tesla?”
When the message becomes more overt later in the film — Christian compassion, “loaves and fishes” for the hungry, “Are we building an ark or a fortress?” By that time it’s as if the screenplay is trying to paint a TV preacher’s optimistic grin on the grimness that “preppers” figure they alone deserve to survive. As if anybody could “prep” their way out of this.
The Big Bang explodes off of Los Angeles, sending assorted families fleeing East, towards this “Homestead” mansion/compound in the heart of The Rockies. Billionaire (we assume) Ian Ross, played by veteran movie heavy Neal McDonough, bought and built and stocked it. There are vineyards and orchards and a garden and a granery.
Part of Ian’s prep was to hire a cadre of combat vets who convoy in via SUVs and military-decorated pick-ups. Bailey Chase hit the gym and grew the requisite stubble to play Jeff Erickson, tactically-trained leader and “realist.” Jeff’s brusque to the point of bullying, a guy who sees their weaknessness and envisons a stronghold that their arsenal and training others there, including his almost-rebellious son (Tyler Lofton), can defend.
Ian’s compassionate conservative wife (Dawn Oliveri) figures they can feed the starving masses outside their razor wire fences. Jeff’s combat-zone veteran wife (Army logistics?), Tara (Kearran Giovanni) is a pragmatist and a problem solver.
Not that Ian hasn’t thought of “everything.” Even his ecologically-minded daughter Claire (Olivia Sanabia) is wholly on board. They’re raising peaches for peach wine, as in olden times that was the safest, surest path to “preserving calories” — turn your harvest into alcoholic drinks.
But as matters quickly settle into an uneasy routine — hunkering down, keeping the gates closed and identifying possible threats (local authority) and rumors of FEMA salvation — “Homestead” grinds pretty much to a halt.
Screenwriters Jason Ross, Joseph Snyder, Leah Bateman and Philip Abraham don’t such much “build” this universe as “cast” this “ark.” They fall straight into the fallacy of men and women with “particular skills,” geared-up soldiers who are in less danger and are inherently less interesting in this scenario than ordinary souls hurled into chaos.
The Baumgartner clan (Jarret LeMaster and Ivey Lloyd Mitchell play the parents, Summer Sadie Mitchell is their teen daughter) are hurled into this nightmare under-“prepped,” “camping” at home, going on the run towards Homestead, connected by charity work they did with the Rosses at some point in the past.
That sort of story, fleeing and surviving on the run, has been covered in scores of earlier films for a reason. It’s just more dramatic and a lot more interesting.
The coup coffee caps and T-shirts aren’t the only identity politics flags flying around here. There’s California bashing, Utah-praising, ridiculous assertions about “militia” defeating National Guard units, a supernatural premonition, the conspiracy nut podcaster who takes to short wave radio to advise everybody to put their cash in “bullets and beans” and um, “crypto.”
Not sure how that will work when the POWER GRID that’s been strained by the electronic, digital Ponzi scheme is down with no prospect of coming back up. But that’s the Neverland we’re visiting here. Crypto will almost certainly cause the next Great Depression, and gun nuttiness is already killing thousands while cultists pray for the day when the social order is upended and they can live out some lawless modern Old West fantasy with themselves on top.
The acting isn’t awful and the production values are passable. McDonough makes a much better villain than anybody shoved into that sort of role here.
This is an origin story that lacks anything in the way of a “hook” to whet the viewer ‘s appetite for a series. Even the “Christianity” angle is soft-peddled.
We may be closer to WWIII or some other calamity that knocks American society off its feet, judging by the past incompetence of those about to take power. But you’ve got to shove more entertainment value in The End than this.
Because the “You were right to fill your bomb shelter with canned beans” crowd is a much smaller audience than the “child traffickers are EVERYwhere” fanbase on Angel Studios’ lone blockbuster.
Rating: PG-13, violence
Cast: Bailey Chase, Dawn Oliveri, Kearran Giovanni, Tyler Lofton, Susan Misner, Emmanuel McCord and Neal McDonough
Credits: Directed by Ben Smallbone, scripted by Jason Ross, Joseph Snyder, Leah Bateman and Philip Abraham, based on the TV series created by Jason Ross and Ben Kasica. An Angel Studios release.
Running time: 1:52
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