Left Behind: The Movie (2000)

News reporter Buck Williams (Kirk Cameron) is looking for some answers. While interviewing scientist Chaim Rosenzweig (Colin Fox), developer of a secret formula capable of producing food abundantly from barren land, Buck witnesses a military invasion aimed at the Holy Land. Technical difficulties prevent Israel from returning fire, yet the attacking warplanes miraculously fall from the sky before inflicting any harm. Why?

A good friend and trusted informant of Buck's claims to have uncovered a conspiracy to gain world domination. So why won't he share the details?

And why have children and some adults from all over the world mysteriously disappeared, leaving only their clothes and personal effects behind, creating mass chaos?

While Buck Williams may be confused by all these events, this film adaptation of a popular Christian book by the same name, which is part of a series of eight novels co-authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, will present a scenario familiar to its fans. As explained on the movie's official website , "This is the rapture that God has planned as the first sign to begin the unraveling of the end of time."

Framing a fictionalized story around the belief that God will remove his innocent and faithful children from the earth before pouring out the calamities foretold in the Bible as signs of Jesus Christ's return to the earth, this film is intended to convey a spiritual message. Certainly it does portray families as important, faith as a positive attribute, and reliance on God as a strength rather than a weakness.

Released on video before playing in theaters, the movie has met with mixed reactions from its intended audience. Some have accused it of being a little preachy and melodramatic, while others have found it motivational.

Left Behind: The Movie has enough of an interesting action/adventure plot (containing some violent depictions) to engage even those who view "The Rapture" as a merely curious premise. But it may also leave some audience members wondering why a Jewish character, portrayed as an honorable man, was left behind.