A movie is being filmed in the Beaufort area that was inspired by the ‘gentlemen smugglers’

Beaufort County is the backdrop of new film that is loosely based on the legendary drug smuggling exploits of the “gentlemen smugglers” who helped launch the career of a young U.S. attorney who would later became South Carolina’s governor.

“Final Load” is being filmed now at locations across the Lowcountry including Beaufort and St. Helena Island, said Hilton Head Island businessman Walter Czura, who is making the movie with his movie production company, Fortress Films.

Directed by Savannah’s Chris Helton of Silver Line Films Inc. the cast in the independent film includes award-winning Hollywood actors Jeff Fahey and Judd Nelson who together have appeared in more than 300 films and TV episodes.

Additional cast members include social media celebrity Maddie Henderson with more than 4.3 million followers on TikTok; prominent Broadway actors Meredith Inglesby and her husband Steve Blanchard; TV reality series actor Shep Rose from Bravo’s “Southern Charm;” accomplished British actress Katie Amess, and American actor and director Drew Waters, who has 37 film and TV credits under his belt.

“It’s an all-star cast for this budget,” Czura told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.

The cast has a strong Lowcountry connection: Inglesby and Rose are originally from Hilton Head and Inglesby and Blanchard now reside in Bluffton. And Helton, the director, is a former U.S. Marine who went through boot camp at Parris Island.

The film’s screenplay is set against the backdrop of South Carolina’s real-life marijuana and hashish smuggling escapades from the late 1970s to late 1980s that spawned “Operation Jackpot,” an FBI investigation into an $850 million marijuana smuggling ring on Hilton Head that ended with the arrest of more than 200 “gentlemen smugglers” — a nickname given because they were college educated and did not use violence.

The investigation launched the career of Gov. Henry McMaster, who was a U.S. attorney at the time overseeing one of the first targets of then-President Ronald Reagan’s “War on Drugs.”

Czura, a Sea Pines resident who wrote the film’s original screenplay, knows plenty about the subject. In 1982, Czura, an attorney, “got caught on a big load” and later pled guilty to conspiracy to import over 1,000 pounds of marijuana. He was disbarred and served time.

“I had a very good working knowledge of it all,” Czura says.

The film, Czura said, is loosely based on actual events that took place in the Operation Jackpot era from about 1975 to 1988, and includes nods to people and places he knew.

“I wanted to acknowledge as much as I could in there,” Czura said, “but maintain my plot lines.”

But the movie is not a documentary, even if it takes its inspiration from real-life.

The main character (played by Fahey) is a former convicted smuggler who must consider committing a major crime again to smuggle 30,000 pounds of marijuana to cover payments that will save his plantation estate and shrimp boat from imminent foreclosure, plus pay for his wife’s $325,000 pancreatic cancer treatment. He travels to Columbia in a 70-foot shrimp boat.

Helton called it a “heartfelt, gripping story in a contemporary setting.”

“It shows how far a man will go (including the risk of returning to prison) to save his home and family while involving his granddaughter along with him,” Helton said.

Czura, who now runs a successful billboard advertising business, decided to set the film in the present because a “retro” film would have been too expensive and he is financing it himself.

While there is a lot of drama and action, “Final Load” is a “feel good” movie” — not a “run and gun” movie — that will even win over the toughest “hard-shell Baptist preacher in America,” Czura said.

As of Friday, filming had been underway for five days and will continue until Feb. 5.

Filming locations include a plantation home west of Beaufort, a mansion in downtown Beaufort, and a 70-foot shrimp boat in the Frogmore area of St. Helena Island. A bar scene also will be filmed in Frogmore. On Saturday, Civil War reenactors were scheduled to be filmed as well.

Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. tanner agreed to let the film company use a deputy sheriff’s patrol car in a scene.

Judd Nelson plays the antagonist in the movie as an ex-DEA agent who holds a grudge against the main character, while Fahey’s granddaughter, portrayed by Maddie Henderson, plays the key supporting role.

The “Final Load” is one of the first feature-length films to be initiated in South Carolina since the state legislature provided new support to encourage more movie-making across the state, which had been largely absent for more than a decade, Czura said.

State Rep. Weston Newton of Bluffton has been one of the major supporters of reenergizing the movie industry in the Lowcountry, said Czura. He expects more film projects to follow that will showcase the beauty of South Carolina.

Last year, Czura established Fortress Films and premiered his first feature length film, “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” a historical drama that premiered at the Poison Peach Film Festival last January in Augusta, Georgia.

Czura expects “Final Load” to be delivered to him by Sept. 1 and will be purchased by a large wholesale streaming company, he said.