A little while back, in this post, we all had fun with some of the “gun bloopers” from TV and the movies.  I have now been authorized to tell you about one movie that’s gonna get it right.

Panteao Productions is a producer of high-end tactical training films, as a quick scan of their website at www.panteaoproductions.com will show.  In the interest of total disclosure, three of those films are mine, and like the others are all downloadable to computer or available to you on DVD.  I also shot on his pistol team for many years.  So, he’s a friend of mine…but I also know the guy, and when he says he’s going to produce a film, it gets produced.

Now, Panteao is going to expand into movie theater entertainment with the film “Alexander’s Bridge.”

You can check it out here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/alexander-s-bridge.  Their quick synopsis is: “Alexander’s Bridge is a science fiction/action film about an elite team of US Army Delta Force Operators accidentally sent back 150 years to the middle of the Civil War. Finding themselves where a battle is about to take place and where thousands of Federal and Confederate soldiers will be killed or wounded, they must decide what to do. Can they make a difference? Who will they try to help? Will they get back home?”

I’ve read the script. This ain’t “Guns of the South” with M4s instead of AK47s.  Panteao CEO Fernando Coelho has real Delta Force operators like Paul Howe and Tom Spooner on his team, and many more top-notch people from whom to draw technical advice. The movement patterns, the tactics, and of course the gun handling are all gonna be real. The Civil War battle scenes won’t consist of Hollywood extras dressed in blue and gray and given rubber guns to run around with: they’ll be made up of hard-core Civil War re-enactors who are absolutely authentic down to the threads of their clothing,  period-correct boot-laces, and of course, the guns.

I hope I’m not letting a cat out of the bag here, but my favorite part of the script is that it ain’t just about 21st Century dudes rockin’ M4s and kickin’ butt on dudes with muzzle-loading single shots (though some of the players will be using period-correct lever actions like you’d have somehow found the money to buy for your son if he was going off to fight in the War Between the States back then).  The most moving part of the film will come when bone-tired battle surgeons of the 1860s watch America’s Finest apply modern tactical emergency medicine to wounded soldiers.  I like it because it shows the world that Our People care more about saving lives than extinguishing them.

It will be entertainment…but it will also be “enter-train-ment.” With the “indiego” thing, you get to chip in for a piece of the production action.

And once it comes out, the next time you and your friends are joking about how movies and TV always get this stuff wrong, you’ll be able to say…”Well, they got it right on the movie I helped to underwrite and produce!”

1 COMMENT

  2. Well I am sure that the movie will offend some group. Northerners will expect that Delta fights on their side, Southerners theirs. There will have to be the obligatory liberating black slave scene and the evil plantation owner.

    This was a brutal “family” war, and declaring one side or the other “right” will only serve to hurt feelings 150 years later.

    I had a work buddy who grew up in Greece. I asked why the old women wear black. He laughed and reminded me that other cultures remember slights, wrongs and the dead, for a LOOOOONG time. Hell he said, he had seen heated arguments over crap that happened a thousand years ago….Our American Civil War ain’t no different.

  3. In THE FINAL COUNTDOWN the USS Nimitz CVN 68 is sent back in time by some sort of time warp to just before 12/7/41 and they have to decide if they should get involved. I saw the movie more times then I can count. I spent 11 days aboard. her as a guest and the movie was always playing on the ships monitors. I also got to spent some time on the bridge and manned the helm for awhile. A real treat!

  4. This is similar to a short story that was published in a national Men’s magazine (I can’t remember which one – maybe Argosy) back in the late sixties (I think). It was current day National Guard unit that was thrust back into time just before a critical Civil War battle. They had to decide which side to join and there was conflict in their ranks on that decision. The obvious advantage they can bring to the fight is fully automatic weapons.

    I remember that the story contained an old unit photograph (properly aged) of a group of Union soldiers in correct period uniforms. It really looked authentic until you noticed their weapons were M-16’s and M-1 Carbines.

    This movie sounds like it is based on the same short story.

  5. Interesting story, and very cool that they’re going to make it as close to the real deal as possible.

    Like Wayne said, there are some other movies that are similar. There’s another movie in development in Hollywood at the moment that’s very similar – It’s based on a Reddit article (http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k067x/could_i_destroy_the_entire_roman_empire_during/c2giwm4) about a Marine unit that gets transported back in time to battle the Roman army. Title: “Rome, Sweet Rome”; http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2634992/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1.

    Only about 1 in 10 projects in Hollywood actually end up getting produced, so we may never see this one in theaters. But it does have some well known writers and producers attached (which unfortunately aren’t visible on IMDB without a paid IMDB Pro subscription), so there’s a good chance it will get made (eventually).

    I hope they raise enough money on the IndieGogo campaign to do a good job producing the film. I contributed, and I’m looking forward to reading the script (I’m a screenwriter).

  8. Yes most movies are similar to former ones. Heck most popular movies are DIRECT COPIES of popular former movies. (down to title, names of actors….)

    Thing is just because this one has similar basic premis. (Modern day military in past) there are many (esp with civil war) directions it can go. Take a well knit team, have then thrown (without warning) into civil war, members may break off, issues develope, some may not want to take any action, others major changes, ,,,,

    As hinted just acting to provide battlefield medical aid (to either side) could be major. Looking forward to it.

  9. Maybe the United Federation of Planets starship U.S.S. Enterprise can zap the Civil War combatants with it’s phaser set on ‘wide beam stun’ thus preventing any impending bloodshed. Already injured soldiers can be treated by Doctor Bones McCoy with his salt shakers. How’s that for being even more humane?

    “Fascinating!” as Mr. Spock would say with arched eyebrow.

  10. Sounds like a screenplay from the short story, “Chronicles of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team,” except that the story was about a WWII team armed with WWII weapons.

  11. Sounds interesting, and it could be a really good movie.

    Couple of random observations:

    1. Neutral POV on the American Civil War? *Maybe* ‘1066 and all that’ had it right with what it said about the two sides in the English Civil War. “Wrong, but romantic versus right, but repulsive.” But it’s really hard to ignore “The Peculiar Institution.”

    2. A movie can be spoiled by howlers on matters of accuracy. But I am often willing to cut a movie a little slack, after all it’s just a movie. And sadly authenticity doesn’t automatically mean a good movie, just as in-authenticity doesn’t necessarily mean a bad movie e.g. Errol Flynn’s ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood.’ Hollywood history at its absolute worst, but darn is it a darn-fine movie!

    Anyway I’ve put $5 in pot, so we’ll see how it goes.

  13. If you want gut-wrenching authenticity, just read the historic/sci-fi stuff from David Drake (if you think “Hammer’s Slammers was gritty, just wait till you read his other stuff… or anything by Kratman). The man partly writes his military fiction as a way to cope with what he saw in Vietnam.