If a Christian film promises me a Biblically inspired apocalypse, I’m going to watch it. Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End is predominantly a pre-Rapture film, but it already feels like a dystopian world. A ruthless criminal biker gang terrorizes the road and encounters a seemingly mild-mannered Kevlar traveling salesman just trying to get home to his wife and kid, but he is actually hiding a dark secret. Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End is Mad Max meets The Guest without the sexiness. Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End mixes action with Touched by an Angel proselytizing. It is weird that Ray Wise, who actually played Satan in Reaper, is the one doing the proselytizing. Side note: also for a Christian who urges the salesman to trust God over a bulletproof vest to protect his family, he owns an awful lot of guns. Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End is the first of three movies, and while it is mildly amusing to watch milquetoast kick leather clad baddies, the action sequences get tiresome and repetitive. Only watch Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End if you are committed to watching the whole series and are into Christian films, which are rarely as good in quality as their “secular” counterparts.

SPOILERS

For me, the most interesting scene in the film involved the Rapture intervening before the biker gang could murder the family and the subsequent scene when the daughter runs away and basically gets protected by Jesus. I enjoyed the gang’s 1st in command’s reaction to his boss saying look for them when they clearly disappeared into thin air. Half the fun of Christian movies is going crazy with the supernatural elements and sensationally representing a world where God intervenes in daily life otherwise nothing distinguishes these films from “secular” dystopian movies.
The worst scene is where the salesman feels bad about defending himself from a psycho husband who tries to beat him up. Just because he has a kid doesn’t mean he isn’t abusive and not worthy of a good thrashing, but the salesman was looking for a fight so the whole thing was unsatisfying and a wash.
Who are these cinematic women who marry men and have children for them, but know nothing about their past? Does this happen in real life? No wonder the divorce rate is so high.