Tim Perez-Ross – Through the Shattered Lens

2026’s The Fort opens with a group of children and teenagers huddled in what appears to be an empty classroom. The atmosphere is gray and bleak. One gets the feeling that this is a place where they have been hiding for a long time.

Billy Magnus (Kevin Sorbo) enters the room and sits down in front of the children. The viewer notices the graffiti written on the walls and the dry erase boards behind him. “2×4=7?” someone has written. As I watched the film, I have to admit that I had a hard time looking away from 2×4=7. Was that meant to indicate that the educational system had collapsed or was it an homage to Orwell’s claim that followers of the State will convince themselves that one plus one equals three? Or was it a call back to the numerology of the Bible, in which seven is presented as the perfect number?

Billy tells a story about what life used to be like, before whatever happened to send everyone into hiding in abandoned buildings. He talks about how normal society collapsed under the weight of financial hardship, civil unrest, and a pandemic that was used as an excuse to strip people of their civil liberties. (Hmmm …. sounds familiar.) Billy tells how a former army chaplain named Cooper (Tim Perez-Ross) lost his family to the pandemic and how he subsequently defeated Aamon (Richard Grieco), who claimed to be a follower of a group of people who called themselves the “Light Bringers.” Ammon died in his encounter with Cooper but was later brought back to life by a demon named Balthazar (Dean Cain) and then….

Okay, okay. I hear you snickering out there. Dean Cain as a demon? Richard Grieco as a wandering enforcer of evil? Yes, it’s easy to mock and I should point out that this is definitely a low-budget production so Balthazar brings Aamon back to life involves a very small electrical charge. And yet, it was more effective than I was expecting. The blank-eyed look of the demons was effectively creepy and Richard Grieco’s wasted appearance captured the character’s self-destructive energy.

Eventually, Cooper ends up leading a group of people to The Fort, a village that he runs with a firm but benevolent hand. Unfortunately, some citizens of The Fort chafe under all of Cooper’s rules and Cooper himself often doesn’t seem as if he truly wants the burden of being in charge of everyone. When a fallen priest shows up with a doctor (Eddie McClintock) who claims that he has the curse for the latest pandemic, the people of the Fort are tempted to reject Cooper’s rules.

The Fort is another low-budget film from Jason Campbell. That budget is noticeable in the film’s sometimes risible special effects. At the same time, there are other moments that effectively capture the isolation of being separated from the rest of the world. Tim Perez-Ross gives a pretty good performance as Cooper, playing him as a man who struggles with his own anger and doubts. In the end, I appreciated that this film was more about redemption and forgiveness than punishment. That’s an important theme that a lot of end-of-the-world films tend to miss.

In 2022’s One Cop’s Journey, Keith Knotek (Tim Perez-Ross) is involved in a traffic accident. Because Keith is clearly intoxicated, he’s taken to jail. Because it’s the start of the weekend, Keith is going to have to spend three days in jail before the Magistrate will see him and determine the amount of money that it will take to get him out.

Keith sits in a jail cell for three days. Because he’s a cop, the other police officers treat him with perhaps a bit more sympathy than they would give the usual inmate. You need a private cell? Here you go. You want us to call your wife? No problem! You want to get changed for court in the officer’s locker room? Sure, why not? Here’s a phone, go ahead and call your minister.

That minister is played by Dean Cain. The cop calls the minister and admits to getting a DUI and maybe hurting some people in the car accident.

“We all make mistakes,” Dean Cain replies.

And isn’t that the truth! One Cop’s Journey attempts to show the stress that would lead a cop to start drinking. His partner and best friend is gunned down while pursuing a suspect. Keith, himself, is nearly killed while conducting a routine traffic stop. No one wants to hear the details of what a cop has to deal with on daily basis. His wife has grown tired of him being depressed and emotionally withdrawn all the time and, when she discovers that he never told her about one traumatic incident that happened shortly before they were married, she considers it to be the same as telling her a lie. Worst of all, his teenage daughter decides to attend an anti-police rally, holding a sign that reads “No Justice No Peace,” while her friends all hold signs that read, “Defund the Police.”

Since this is a faith-based film, Keith eventually finds redemption and hope through prayer and he goes on to write a book about the pressures of being a cop. That’s to be expected and, to its credit, the film doesn’t get particularly preachy when it comes to the religious angle. I imagine that most people who would regularly get offended by the religious subtext will be too busy getting upset over the film’s political subtext to really notice.

One Cop’s Journey is thoroughly and unapologetically pro-cop and that’s never more obvious than in the protest scene when the blue collar, salt-of-the-earth policemen find themselves being yelled at by a bunch of bitter geriatrics and a few smirking college students. There’s nothing subtle about it but, then again, there’s nothing subtle about most left-wing movies either. As is so often the case when it comes to political movies, how you react will depend on how you felt about the issue before the movie started. (My own personal opinion is that police reform is something that needs to be considered, especially when it comes to the militarization of the police. At the same time, the “abolish the police” folks were and are living in a fantasy world.)

One Cop’s Journey is only 63 minutes long and there is an effective dream sequence in which Keith finds himself looking at the headshots of everyone who he feels he has left down. That said, the film still had far too many slow spots for so short of a production. Putting Keith in the jail cell really did make the whole thing feel pretty stagey. Still, the film did find the time to share some information about Post Traumatic Stress amongst first responders. It’s heart was in the right place.