October Positivity: Revelation Road 2: The Sea of Glass and Fire (dir by Gabriel Sabloff)

Posted on October 27, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts is in this!

That, in itself, isn’t a surprise. Eric Roberts was also in the first Revelation Road. He plays the same role in the 2013 sequel. Roberts is Sheriff Jenson, the not particularly religious sheriff who has to deal with a town that’s gone mad in the wake of the Rapture. Over the course of one night, dozens of people (including Jenson’s mother) vanished as their souls flew into the air. Jenson isn’t sure what happened but he knows that there is panic in the streets and that there is also a crazed motorcycle gang to deal with. In the first film, Roberts was onscreen for maybe two minutes. He gets closer to five minutes in Revelation Road 2 and you know what? it’s always nice to see Eric Roberts!

As for the rest of the film, it picks up where the previous one ended. Josh McManus (David A.R. White) is trying to get home to his family while also resisting the urge to become a killer. It’s not easy. Flashbacks reveal that Josh was actually brainwashed by the CIA to be a remorseless killer. He’s haunted by a mission in the Middle East and the amount of people he killed over there. He’s joined in his drive home by Beth (Noelle Coet), a teenage girl who has been sent by Jesus himself (Bruce Marchiano) to help guide Josh in the right direction. Pursuing Josh is the fearsome Hawg (Brian Bosworth), a motorcycle gang leader who is haunted by his own personal tragedy. Hawg’s daughter, Cat (Andrea Logan White), struggles to understand her father’s anger and hatred.

Revelation Road 2 is a definite improvement over the first film. If the first film seemed to take forever to go nowhere, Revelation Road 2 is all about Josh’s determination to get back home. Once he starts that car up, nothing is going to stop him. If the first film seemed to be a bit too eager to show off Josh’s talent for killing people, Revelation Road 2 features Josh trying to hold back on his murderous instincts. Flashbacks to Hawg’s past life bring some much-needed nuance and context to his actions and they keep him from being just a one-dimensional villain. I would dare say that Bosworth actually gives a legitimately good performance in this film.

Though the film wears its influences on its sleeve (Hi, Mad Max!), Revelation Road 2 is still a surprisingly well-done action film.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

October Positivity: Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End (dir by Gabriel Sabloff)

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Eric Roberts is in the 2013 film, Revelation Road: The Beginning of the End.

Of course, he’s only in it for a few minutes. In fact, if you blink, you will miss him. He plays Sheriff Jenson, who is in charge of enforcing the law in a small desert community. He appears long enough to tell salesman John McManus (David A.R. White) not to leave town. McManus has just killed three armed men who were attempting to rob a general store. The store’s owner (Ray Wise) invites him to dinner but the cops are curious as to how a salesman could be so proficient at killing people.

Revelation Road plays out over the course of one long night. A group of bikers, led by the fearsome Hawg (Brian Bosworth), are seeking revenge for the death of their compatriots. Meanwhile, Iran is pushing the world towards war. In a motel, a woman asks John for money. Lighting flashes. Lights flicker on and off. The Earth shakes. It’s a fearful time, largely because the world itself is coming to an end. A little over an hour into this 88 minute film, there’s a sudden blinding light and suddenly, a fourth of the cast vanishes. One person who does not vanish runs into a kindly stranger, played by Bruce Marchiano. Marchiano will be well-known to viewers of faith-based cinema for the number of times that he’s played Jesus. So, you can probably guess what’s happened.

Revelation Road ends with the promise of a sequel, which means that the film also ends with a lot of unanswered questions. It makes Revelation Road difficult to really review because it’s obviously meant to be a prologue to the actual story. I will note that Revelation Road is a surprisingly violent movie, at least by the standards of most faith-based films. Then again, most of the violence was in self-defense and the Bible itself is full of stories of violent men who found redemption. In fact, you could probably argue that it’s impossible to do an apocalypse movie that isn’t violent. We’ll just have to wait to see where this story is heading.

I’ll review the sequel tomorrow.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

October Positivity: Me Again (dir by David A.R. White)

Posted on October 23, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2011’s Me Again, David A.R. White stars as Rich.

Rich is a typical David A.R. White character. He’s a preacher with a young family and he has lost his ability to excite his congregation. His sermons are dry and boring and show little connection with the concerns or lives of those listening. Rich is burned out and his wife, April (Ali Landry), is tired of listening to him complain. When they were children, April promised Rich that they were meant to be together. Now that they are adults and married, April and Rich are separated and April wants to make the divorce final.

Poor Rich! No one respects him and he’s about to lose his family. His one friend, Tony (Tommy Blaze), tries to offer some good advice but Rich doesn’t want to hear it. Rich just wants to feel sorry for himself and watch an odd infomercial hosted by Big Earl (Bruce McGill). Big Earl says that if you call his number, he can change your life. Rich doesn’t call the number but his life gets changed anyways.

Rich finds himself being transported from one body to another. When he wakes up, he’s a wealthy man who has no friends and who has a heart condition. Just as quickly, he finds himself in the body of Chloe (Andrea White Logan), an insecure super model with an eating disorder. Then, suddenly, he’s in the body of a fish floating in a fish tank in Tony’s restaurant. Then he’s his daughter’s teen boyfriend, who is pressuring her to start taking birth control. (AGCK!) Then he’s in his wife’s body. Briefly, he takes control of Della Reese. He even spends some time in jail, talking to Big Earl.

And I guess the idea is that, from going to body to body, Rich learns why he needs to stop feeling sorry for himself and actually make the effort to make his marriage work. He also comes to understand the problems of a few other people. The rich man needs to go to church. The model needs to do something about all the disparaging post-it notes that she has hanging around her house. Her daughter’s boyfriend needs to be handcuffed with a sock in his mouth. The fish need as new home. You get the idea.

This movie …. well, let’s give credit where credit is due. David A.R. White is not a bad actor and his comedic timing is adequate. There were a few moments when he did make me smile. I laughed out loud when he suddenly became a fish. As a director, though, White goes a bit overboard. The whole thing with Rich becoming a model starts out as relatively humorous but then it just goes on and on. As well, I appreciated the message of taking care of other people but I’m not sure that the best way to communicate that message was for the very white Rich to briefly inhabit the body of a black housekeeper. The intentions may have been good but the execution often left me cringing.

Me Again is like a lot of faith-based comedies. There are a few humorous moments but, in the end, it’s just too uneven to really work.

October Positivity: Redeemed (dir by David A.R. White)

Posted on October 19, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2014’s Redeemed, Ted McGinley plays Paul Tyson.

Paul is married to Beth (Teri Copley) and is a respected businessman who is in charge of a cybersecurity firm. His latest project is Jericho which, if successful, could revolutionize the way that information is protected online. A Brazilian firm is interested in buying Paul’s company, which could make Paul a very wealthy man.

However, Paul has some secrets. Work on Jericho has not gone as smoothly as one might hope and Paul suspects that it might be due to corporate espionage. Paul is several thousand dollars in debt and the bank has been sending him threatening letters. When Paul’s friend David (David A.R. White, who also directed) splits with his wife, Paul starts to wonder whether any marriage can survive the modern age. How do you keep a marriage strong in an increasingly complicated world? Paul and Beth are supposed to be renewing the vows in the near-future but Paul is preoccupied with both his job and what appears to be a massive mid-life crisis.

Temptation arrives in the form of Julia (Ana Ayora), a beautiful woman who has been sent from Brazil to check out the company. Paul finds himself attracted to Julia and they bond over many a night of corporate intrigue. Paul finds himself growing distant from Beth. Is Paul going to cheat and destroy his marriage?

(Actually, David explains that Paul is already cheating just by spending time with a woman other than this wife. David also explains that he’s not the one who cheated in his marriage. Instead, his wife met some guy in an Internet chatroom and she’s been talking to him nonstop. They haven’t even met but it’s enough for David to move out of his house and into a hotel. So, remember — if you’re married and you have any close friends of the opposite sex, you’re just a cheatin’ whore. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules.)

Will Paul remain faithful to Beth? And will he ever discover who is trying to sabotage Jericho?

On the positive side, Redeemed features Ted McGinley in a dramatic lead role and McGinley does a pretty good job with it. There are a few times when Paul is simply too naive to be believable but that’s due to the script and not due to McGinley’s performance. McGinley does the best he can with the material that he’s been given to work with. I will also point out that the stock footage of Brazil was lovely. Finally, David A.R. White is a pleasant-enough actor and his direction here gives the entire film a comfortable Lifetime sort of fell.

On the negative side …. ugh, that plot. The corporate espionage stuff was hokey and Paul’s indecision about whether or not to commit adultery made his character seem more than a little flakey. Paul’s married to a very tolerant and understanding woman and he has a beautiful family. The fact that Paul was so easily tempted to throw all that away makes it difficult to have much sympathy for his character and it also makes his eventual “redemption” a bit difficult to buy. I think most genuinely good husbands would be able to decide not to cheat on their wives without having to fly off to Brazil to think about it. In the end, the film is very forgiving of Paul but it doesn’t convince the audience to feel the same way.

Redeemed is a film that celebrates marriage and leaves one appreciating divorce.

October Positivity: The Wager (dir by Judson Pearce Morgan)

Posted on October 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2007’s The Wager, Randy Travis plays Michael Steele, an Oscar-nominated actor who….

Stop laughing, that’s not nice.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that Randy Travis is not exactly the first person that I would cast as an Oscar-nominated actor. And, I’ll also be the first to admit that having Randy Travis act in this film makes it even harder to believe him as someone who could someday be nominated for an Oscar. A lot of country music stars have tried their hand at acting and most of them have been able to survive on the basis of their own authenticity. But there’s nothing authentic about Travis’s performance here. Even when he picks up a guitar and sings a song about the difficulties that he’s facing, he’s not convincing. In this, it’s not so much that Travis is a stiff actor as he just seems to evaporate whenever he’s on screen.

As for the film, Michael Steele is an actor who is known for his strong faith and his refusal to do sex scenes. When a director (Bronson Pinchot) throws a fit over Steele’s refusal to shoot once such scene, Steele says that he’ll do the scene but only if it’s followed by a scene in which his co-star has to deal with being a single mother. OUCH! Michael Steele seems like he’s fun at parties….

(Apparently, it doesn’t occur to Michael that his character could wear a condom.)

Wait a minute. This guy has the same name as that jackass who is always on the news talking about how he’s a Republican who thinks everyone should vote for the Democrats. I wonder if that’s intentional. Anyway….

Michael Steele’s career has had its up and downs. His recent divorce from Annie (Nancy Stafford) has damaged his family friendly image. But his Oscar nomination and the fact that he’s expected to win has once again made the world’s most popular star. But then — scandal! A tabloid photographer snaps a picture of Michael talking to a young actress at his house. In the background, a little kid watches. Now, the kid is a part of the Big Brother program and Michael was just trying to help the younger woman with her career but it doesn’t matter. Soon, Michael finds himself being portrayed as being some sort of pervert. When he punches a photographer, he finds himself getting arrested — RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS CHURCH!

Now, as you may have guessed, this is yet another retelling of the story of Job, with Michael having his faith tested by one disaster after another. He doesn’t lose his faith and, as a result, he wins both an Oscar and he also becomes a hero when he rescues the kid from the Big Brother program from his abusive stepfather. Anyone who thinks that God wouldn’t have a hand in who wins an Oscar obviously did not listen to Will Smith’s acceptance speech.

The Wager is a film that would probably not be made today. Today, you’re not likely to see a socially conservative, faith-based film where a successful actor is wrongly accused of being a pervert. Then again, you also probably wouldn’t see a politically liberal film in which a successful white male actor was wrong accused of being an abuser, not in today’s cultural climate. On both the Left and the Right, attitudes towards Hollywood have changed. Beyond the film’s political and cultural subtext, its portrait of the Oscars as being the most important event of the year also feels rather old-fashioned. I imagine it felt old-fashioned in 2007 as well….

Then again, this is a film in which Randy Travis plays the best actor of his generation so perhaps it’s best not to take any of it too seriously. The miscasting of Travis pretty much sabotages the movie from the start but, on the positive side, Bronon Pinchot is amusing as a bitchy director and Jude Ciccolella has a few good scenes as Michael’s supportive agent. Give those men an Oscar!