Rising Storm

In the year 2099, two brothers (Wayne Crawford and Zach Galligan) get swept up in a fight against a religious zealot world leader in a post-apocalyptic USA. This was one of a series of films actor-producer Crawford shot in the late '80s in South Africa. The poster promises a generic action movie, but this one is a really weird one with lots of oddball moments and satirical takes on prosperity religious types. This may come from director Francis Schaeffer (Wired to Kill), who grew up the son of one of the pioneers of the American Evangelical Christian movement (he turned his back on it in his 30s). The desert action is well staged and they certainly get a lot from their locations. I'm assuming the only film in history where someone gets crushed to death by a Bob's Big Boy statue. John Rhys-Davies pops in for a few scenes as the bad guy tracking our leads.

In year 2099 the dictator Reverend Jimmi Joe II rules the USA. History is forgotten and the Reverends history book is history now. The only thing who can make people see what's going on is the video tape of a dead DJ.

Well, this is not a very good film. It's OK if your bored, but not in any way a must see. There are at some points good cinematography, some good punch-lines and funny elements.

The plot is kind of interesting. A man taking over a country and denying all of it's real history to it's people and in stead giving out his own history book. However, this just don't work for this movie. The whole thing is just not believable enough and the costumes doesn't help. They just look silly.

If you don't have anything else to do this movie is OK.

During one summer in my life, I did a LOT of late-night cable TV viewing. Saw LOTS of straight-to-cable and direct-to-video films. This one stands out - good cinematography, occasional bits of satire, and well-done action scenes. Rent it on a rainy day, cause there are a lot of parched desert scenes.

My review was written in May 1989 after a Cannes Film Festival Market screening.

Alternating at will between futuristic satire and hard action sequences, "Rising Storm" (a/k/a "Rebel Waves") is an entertaining hybrid in the "Mad Max" genre, likely to scare up a video following.

Lensed in South Africa (spotlighting scenic views of the now over-familia Namib desert), pic is set in the U. S. in the year 2009, when what' left of the country is ruled by a totalitarian theocracy headed by oily televangelist Jimmy Joe II.

Spoof elements get underway with a bang as Richard Strauss' "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" plays during the opening credits sequence, in which a huge Big Boy hamburger statue is excavated like some rare artifact.

On-the-run plot has brothers Wayne Crawford and Zach Galligan (former just sprung from stir) thrown in with blonde sisters June Chadwick and Elizabeth Keifer, the gals being chased by various heavies headed by John Rhys-Davies (whose penchant for sadistic torture is film's roughest element).

Femmes turn out to be freedom fighters, who with the heroes' unwitting acceptance uncover the ancient radio station of a militant deejay. They use cassettes he left behind to broadcast the truth to brainwashed populace and bring about a revolution.

Helmer Francis (a/k/a Franky) Schaeffer overlays the usual post-apocalypse shenanigans with high style, including some smooth Steadicam wok and solid action scenes. Exaggerated tongue-in-cheek nature of the script skews the film's potential audience toward cultists, however.

Crawford, better known as producer (though he previously starred in his own pic "Jake Speed"), does very well as the mercenary hero. Newcome Keifer complements spunky Chadwick as heroines willing to muss up their hair a bit. William Katt, who previously starred for Crewqrfod and his producing partner Andrew Lane in "White Ghost", is effective in an unbilled cameo as the dee-jay.

Of course whenever you're gonna look for a movie with a Post-Apocalyptic setting you can only be sure of the fact that the film was done on a low budget. What I don't get is why people who make these types of films don't put more effort in to making them believable (it's been done before, with little low-budget films like Star Wars and Terminator). Sex-scenes never add more cinematic value (even in a Bond film) and unnecessary sexual references just blow a movie flat.

I was actually enjoying several parts of this movie, but eventually the cheapness caught up with it and even worse, the fanatic Christian Government, where every military order ends with "Praise the Lord" or "God Bless", starts to get very repetitive really fast.

Unlike with Cyborg 3, I never really got in to the mood of this film and I think it just falls flat in comparison. A few good scenes don't make a very good feature-length film.