Homestead Film Review By Afdah
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Ian Ross (Neal McDonough) is a visionary. Concerned about the government's inability to respond to a potential disaster, he and his wife Jenna (Dawn Olivieri) have built a farm "somewhere in the Rocky Mountains." The lavishly appointed estate is set on a survival-oriented plot with orchards, vineyards, fish ponds, grain silos, and enough weapons for a small military skirmish. Ross also has a plan to defend his family's fort. Watch the film Homestead on Afdah stream.
He hires Jeff Erickson (Bailey Chase), a security expert and military veteran, to come on-site to help stabilize the situation that stands between a disaster and the government's ability to respond. And when Los Angeles is attacked with a dirty bomb and the East Coast power grid is taken offline by a cyberattack, Americans are scared, anxious and hungry. Crowds swarm the gates of the compound and the situation becomes increasingly tense. With Erickson's black-and-white apocalyptic depiction of the situation and the plethora of weapons at hand, the inevitable soon happens... but in a way no one expected.
Homestead starts off as you'd expect as a prepper movie that tries to check off all the right boxes. There are references to homeschooling, government incompetence, bureaucrats who want to confiscate weapons, and there's even an implicit critique of electric cars (though solar panels are installed, which is apparently okay). It's true that FEMA and other government agencies will never be enough. So in a world where the strongest win, everyone gets their own. This world is full of tension, gun violence, and on-screen deaths that surprisingly have no legal repercussions in the real world. (But so much for the negative content, so the PG-13 rating is fair.)
I have to say this movie really frustrated me until the last act. I felt like I was trapped in some kind of prepper fever dream, drowning in paranoia and violence. Where the story gets really interesting is when Jenna starts asking the hard questions. Jenna is dealing with not only everyday challenges, but also larger questions of what it means to be a Christian in a broken world. Is the believer's job to hide in a bunker or to share what he has even if it is insufficient? Is a home an ark or a fortress? Is Christianity a faith of scarcity or a faith of mercy, a faith of fear or a faith of faith? Do Christians believe in the miracle of the loaves and fishes or not? These are fundamental questions for Christians, and insofar as this film focuses on them it is instructive.
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