**_A political thriller that offers a sobering peek into the spiritual war behind-the-scenes_** A senator (Jason Gerhardt) wants to do the right thing in government and so presents a threat to the venal vax-obsessed DC establishment, which draws attack, both physical and spiritual. Donny Boaz is on hand as Gabriel. “Heaven’s War,” aka “Beyond the Darkness,” was shot in April-June, 2011, but not released until 2018. Why’d it take so long? Because roughly 46% of the shots in the film contain CGI effects, which are well-done considering this is the furthest thing from a blockbuster production. The political intrigue of the opening act is convoluted, but everything is eventually explained. The writer/director respected the intelligence of the viewer to put the pieces together. Furthermore, it took gonads to base the political complications around raising taxes and mandatory “vaccines” (something for which satan’s favorite party is known). Speaking of this aspect, the movie is amazingly prescient of what went down a full decade after it was written. I’m talking about the 2020-2022 plandemic that negatively affected the masses and destroyed many. The depictions of the spiritual realm are on a comic book level, but effective. To illustrate, the sequence involving the lake of fire is genuinely harrowing whereas the colorful swashbuckling skirmishes smack of “Conan the Barbarian.” The dark warrior with a huge hammer, for instance, is reminiscent of Thorgrim in the 1982 movie (Sven Ole Thorsen). The human interest revolves around inspiring the viewer to examine himself/herself on several levels and (hopefully) apprehend wisdom, healing or even eternal redemption. I’ll just comment on one unexpected area: We tend to judge & criticize how others have treated us in the past, like our parents, but don’t realize how our own words/actions might be having a similar damaging effect on others, even those closest to us. If that’s not human interest, I don’t know what is. There’s one glaring theological error, which I’m not going to get into, but 2 Timothy 1:10, Romans 2:7, Romans 6:23 and Matthew 10:28 will elucidate; heck, just reread the Bible’s most popular verse, John 3:16, and the ensuing John 3:36. However, the writer/director is (or was) a professor at Liberty University and so this religious perspective is to be expected to some degree in light of sectarianism; plus, it’s so minor it doesn’t ruin the film. Joe Estevez is on hand as Senator Baker while Robert Walker Jr appears as Agent Mills. It was the latter’s final film as he passed away in 2019. You might remember him as the titular character in the memorable Star Trek episode “Charlie X” from 1966. The flick runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in Austin and north of there in Round Rock, Texas, along with establishing shots of DC. GRADE: B

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