Beaufort movie based on Lowcountry ‘gentlemen smugglers’ generates buzz. Here’s a preview

Beaufort’s marshes, rivers and historic charm are the backdrop of a new movie that was shot last year entirely in the vicinity of the city. The story, about one man’s efforts to save a family, takes its inspiration from an infamous 40-year-old Lowcountry drug smuggling case. “The Final Run” — which will make its worldwide debut next month at the 18th Beaufort International Film Festival (BIFF) — also manages to get in a line about another local crime odyssey — the Alex Murdaugh investigation.

Ron and Rebecca Tucker launched the film festival in 2007 to highlight the work of aspiring filmmakers of all genres — and as a way to lure filmmakers to Beaufort. The area has been the backdrop to approximately 20 films including “Forrest Gump,” “The Prince of Tides” and “G.I. Jane.” Almost two decades later, the international film showcase in a small city with Southern charm attracts thousands. Directors from all over the world premier their independent feature and short films and documentaries during the event.

“The Final Run” stars Jeff Fahey — maybe best-known for his roles in Stephen King’s “The Lawnmower Man” and ABC’s “Lost” series. Fahey plays a former Marine and long-retired marijuana smuggler whose wife is suffering from a rare type of cancer, which forces him to to make one “final run” in order to save his house, his company and his wife.

The movie, directed by Chris Helton, also features Judd Nelson of “The Breakfast Club” and “New Jack City” fame and TikTok star Maddie Henderson.

Filming occurred last February in Beaufort, Burton and St. Helena Island. It is based loosely on a drug ring that saw smugglers in the 1970s and 1980s deliver drugs picked up in Colombia and Lebanon and other locations to the South Carolina coast including Hilton Head, Edisto, St. Helena, Dataw and Pine islands.

A FBI investigation, dubbed “Operation Jackpot,” ended the drug running with the arrest of 200 so-called “gentlemen smugglers” who earned the nickname because of their college degrees and an aversion to trafficking cocaine because the drug brought with it too much violence — even though it was more profitable. A young U.S. Attorney named Henry McMaster, a soldier in President Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs who would later become South Carolina’s governor, led the prosecution efforts.

Former Beaufort Gazette reporter Jason Ryan wrote a book about it in 2011 called, “Jackpot: High Times, High Seas and the Sting That Launched the War on Drugs.”

One of the “gentlemen smugglers” caught up in the prosecutions was Walter Czura, an attorney. And it was Czura, now a businessman who lives on Hilton Head Island’s Sea Pines Plantation, who wrote the screenplay for “The Final Run.”

Czura says there’s a lot of local buzz about the movie in Beaufort and he’s pleased with the way it turned out.

“People are really excited about seeing this,” Czura says.

Post-production work on the film was completed in December, Czura said, and has now been presented to distributors including Lionsgate and Netflix. He’s expecting answers soon and if a distribution deal is completed the film will be available for general audiences sometime later this year.

It is one of six selections in the feature film category competing in the film festival, which is Feb. 20-25. “The Final Run” will be shown Friday night, Feb. 23.

Capturing the area’s visual beauty was critical, says Czura, and the film includes drone shots of the Woods Memorial Bridge and downtown Beaufort. Sweeping vistas and marshes and rivers and boats plying local waters will be instantly recognized by local residents, too.

The cinematography, notes Czura, is “excellent.”

Atlanta-based Edward Guinn, the cinematographer on the film, was among those honored at the International Cinematographers Guild’s Emerging Cinematographer Awards in Los Angeles in October.

Scenes also were shot downtown in the Tabernacle Baptist Church on Craven Street and the Pick Pocket Plantation in Burton. Shrimper John Payne allowed the filmmakers to use his 70-foot shrimp boat called the Buddy Roe.

“It has a natural setting for film production,” Czura says of Beaufort, “and it’s small enough to work with as opposed to large cities.”

Czura already is working on a sequel that may be titled “One More Run.” Once again, filming, which would begin this summer, would occur in Beaufort and a 12-mile radius. A smaller filming area, says Czura, fits the film’s budget.

Czura describes the “The Final Run” as “very dramatic,” with the action keeping the audience enthralled over how the story will turn out. “They will be pulling for this family,” he says.

It has humor too with Czura asking current Gov. McMaster to contribute dialogue in the film. Spoiler alert: he declined. Ironically, Czura then voices the governor’s role and it is included in the film during a telephone conversation with a DEA agent.

In 1982, Czura pled guilty to conspiracy to import over 1,000 pounds of marijuana and was eventually disbarred; he appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court in 1985 and lost.

Czura, who wrote the dialogue between the governor and the DEA agent, also managed to get in a mention of a well-connected Lowcountry attorney who was convicted in 2023 in the June 2021 murders of his wife and son and other financial crimes in a case that gripped the attention of the Lowcountry and the nation for months. “You ain’t involved in that Murdaugh case are ya?” Czura, playing the role of the governor, says in the film, referencing Alex Murdaugh.