Marisa Lynae Hampton | Through the Shattered Lens

First released in 2019 and funded by an Indiegogo campaign, The Reliant is the epitome of a late-era Eric Roberts film.

Roberts appears towards the beginning of the film. He gets roughly 45 seconds of screen time. He delivers three lines, all in close-up. His character is named Mr. Johnson but, to know that, you have to sit through the entire film so that you can track down his name in the end credits. We don’t know anything about his character, other than he’s a hardware store owner. We don’t know anything about his fate. When last seen, his store is being overrun by a bunch of Antifa goons. It’s not looking good for Mr. Johnson but luckily, he has a lot of weapons.

Kevin Sorbo is also in the film. His role is slight larger. He only gets maybe 16 minutes worth of screentime. His character is killed off fairly early but he does get to appear in a few flashbacks and a fantasy sequence. He plays a father who has taught his children how to shoot guns and survive in case society breaks down. Society does break down and he dies while defending his family. He probably would have survived if his liberal daughter Sophie (Mollee Gray) hadn’t hid the key to the gun safe. Sophie (boo!) doesn’t believe in the Second Amendment and doesn’t like it when her father goes shooting. Not even the sight of hundreds of angry rioters getting ready to open fire on her house can change Sophie’s mind. Boo, Sophie, boo!

Sophie doesn’t believe in killing, even if self-defense. (I don’t believe in killing either. That said, if someone’s coming at you with a gun, you have every right to defend yourself.) When she finds out that her fiancé, Adam (Josh Murray), has had to kill people while she and her siblings were hiding out in the woods, Sophie throws a fit and says that she doesn’t even want Adam — who can barely walk due to an injury — staying at her family’s camp. Sophie is a …. well, I swore off profanity for Lent.

Sophie and her family are being stalked by Jack (Brian Bosworth), an angry man who has a personal grudge against them. Along with Roberts and Sorbo, Bosworth is the other “name” in this movie and he actually does get substantial screentime. And he actually gives a good performance as well, certainly the best in this film.

The Reliant is a technically well-made film and some of the action sequences are surprisingly effective. Unfortunately, whenever the characters are arguing about faith and whether or not guns cen be a useful tool, the movie becomes painfully draggy. The Reliant is occasionally fun in a “I’m going to show this to the most annoying leftie I know and watch them get offended” sort of way. But, for the most part, it’s just too talky and slow for its own good.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Bring it on deadly!

Cindy Braverman (Grace Patterson) and Allison Regan (Marisa Lynae Hampton) are both hoping to become the newest members of the Queen Bees, the senior cheerleaders! However, the head cheerleader — Fiona Sparks (Anna Belle Bayley) — isn’t going to make things easy for them or anyone else who wants to become a Queen Bee. Before you can be a Queen Bee, you have to go through two weeks of ritual humiliation and soul-destroying abuse.

That’s right …. it’s initiation time!

However, this isn’t a typical initiation. Sure, there’s the usual stuff, like getting soaked with a hose and being ordered to only say “buzz” for an entire day. But then there’s the secret parties, the forced marches, the mysterious car theft, the disappearances, and the murders. Oh yes, there are a few deaths. Actually, everyone insists that the deaths are just an unfortunate coincidence but Allison isn’t so sure and eventually, Cindy comes to share her suspicions. Can they solve the mystery of the dying and vanishing cheerleaders or is the high school going to have to suffer through a year without their bees!?

Buzz buzz!

I always enjoy a good Lifetime cheerleader movie, largely because they give me a chance to play “What if?” My sister was cheerleader and I spent my first two years of high school being continually told that I should be a cheerleader. I have to admit that I was perhaps a bit more tempted than I was willing to acknowledge at the time. However, in the end, I always decided that I wanted to establish my own identity and do my own thing and that’s what I did. I enjoyed high school and I have to admit that I’ve never been able to relate to people who claim that it was the worst time of their lives. Still, I do occasionally wonder what my high school experience would have been like if I had followed in my sister’s footsteps and cheered. Would I have still discovered my love of history, art, and writing? Would I have been lucky enough to still have the same large group of very different and very interesting friends? Or would I have spent all of my time just hanging out with the other cheerleaders? (For the record, my sister was a kickass cheerleader and is now a kickass photographer so it probably wasn’t quite the binary choice that it’s often presented as being.) I imagine I would have a good time regardless of which choice I made because I always manage to have a good time. But, as a cheerleader, I would have missed out on some fun experiences just as I probably missed out on a few by not being a cheerleader.

Or, at least, that’s what I believed before I watched my first Lifetime cheerleader film! Seriously, on Lifetime, cheerleading is dangerous! You’re always either getting stalked or the other cheerleaders are plotting to kill you or you end up with a teacher trying to ruin your life for no good reason. That’s the fun of a good Lifetime movie, of course. Everything and everyone always ends up going to extremes. Lifetime films deal with real-life situations but they do so in such an over-the-top way that you can watch them and think, “I may be struggling right now but at least my situation isn’t as bad as all that!”

Cheer For Your Life is a fun Lifetime cheerleader film, one that assures us that peer pressure is bad but being a cheerleader is really cool. While it hits all of the expected Lifetime cheerleader film plot points, it also features two likable performances from Grace Patterson and especially Marisa Lynae Hampton. (If you don’t cheer a little when Hampton continues her investigate despite being on crutches, I have to wonder what you would cheer for.) Anna Belle Bayley is wonderfully villainous as the head cheerleader. It’s an entertaining film, one that encourages you to be careful what you wish for while also assuring you that you should probably go ahead and wish for it anyways.