In the action-thriller Ghost Soldier, Jim Caviezel stars as Henry “Fitz” Fitzgerald, a solitary man with a mysterious past, living a quiet life off the grid in his hometown. But when a powerful foreign corporation descends upon his community, determined to seize his and his neighbours’ land for a massive payday, Fitz takes action. He’s actually a former Special Forces soldier and advanced weapons developer. Armed with weapons no one has seen, a lifetime of lethal military training, and an unwavering code of justice, Fitz becomes the one thing his enemies never anticipated: a one-man war they can’t win.
Fitz’s high-tech weaponry instills Ghost Soldier’s suspenseful, adrenaline-fueled action with a unique identity, emphasizing scale and intensity over gritty violence. At the same time, the filmpresents a hero unlike most we’ve seen before. A former Green Beret who lives in a small Wyoming town, Fitz has an unmovable code of justice, and an instinct to protect his vulnerable neighbors from powerful corporations – both here and abroad – who want to take their land and destroy their way of life.
Fitz is courageous, methodical, disciplined, and smart, and he utilises his military skills to help those who need it the most.
“You can’t be a more red-blooded American than Fitz,” offers screenwriter Chris Papasadero, a former Green Beret. “Fitz probably carries the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in his back pocket. That’s the base upon which his ideology is built, and when those values are trampled upon, there’s no question that Fitz will act.”
Coming off his success as a different kind of hero who rescues trafficked children in Colombia, in the box-office hit Sound of Freedom, Jim Caviezel embraced Fitz, a defiant underdog with whom he says, “I connected right away because Fitz lives by a moral code he won’t break. Fitz can’t walk away from an injustice, whatever it costs him.
“I love a good action film – and this has some of the biggest and most intense action I’ve experienced – but it was Fitz’s moral compass and his hunger for justice that led me to say yes to Ghost Soldier,” he continues. “I’m drawn to characters willing to sacrifice for their convictions. That’s the measure of a man, and it’s the kind of story I keep coming back to.”
Caviezel’s frequent collaborator, producer David Zelon, says, “Jim is the perfect Fitz because he has a similar love for his country and for the outdoors. Jim hails from Washington state, and has fired many weapons, both in movies and in his personal life as an outdoorsman. Like Fitz, he also has real empathy for people.”
That empathy is the opposite of what defines the forces marshalling against Fitz. As Ghost Soldier opens, there’s a telling and famous quote from Mark Twain about land grabs and theft:
“There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.”
Twain’s outrage about how so much that we hold dear has been stolen through force and bloodshed, continues to resonate today, as Caviezel notes. “Most people identify with protecting their home, family, and community because we were created with the instinct to protect what we love. Over the past few years, we’ve seen ordinary people standing up again, doing the right thing, even when it’s hard. That’s the resurgence I see, and this film speaks right to it.
“I think we’ve forgotten, a bit, that neighbors-helping-neighbors principle, but it’s still there,” he continues. “This film reminds us of its importance.”
For Papasadero, it was that very thing Twain lamented that inspired him to create the story. “It was seeing the convergence of corporate and government power and wanting to write a story in which a hero can fight back against that convergence,” he explains.
In fact, Papasadero says his favorite scene to write was “a confrontation between Fitz and his handler, Peary, where Fitz asks, ‘If the government has a monopoly on violence, and the corporations have a monopoly on the government, who’s really in charge?’ It really sums up that aspect of Fitz and what he’s facing.”
To helm Ghost Soldier, Zelon turned to William Eubank, a filmmaker highly regarded for his strong visual style and for creating tense atmospheres.
He excels at using the environment, including the crush of the ocean floor in Underwater, or the rugged terrain of a battlefield for a soldier on the run, in Land of Bad. Eubank shapes his action around physical obstacles. For Ghost Soldier, he shot in the rolling expanses of Romania, which stand in for rural Wyoming, allowing Eubank to use the isolation of the landscape to dial up the tension.
Caviezel was sold on bringing Eubank aboard after watching Land of Bad, about a rookie Air Force combat controller who must survive a brutal 48-hour fight behind enemy lines with only a remote drone pilot as his lifeline. “After the screening,” Caviezel remembers, “I said, ‘Will is the guy,’ and he brought a lot of things to this film that aren’t on the paper.”
Eubank was drawn to Ghost Soldier because, he says, “It felt like a modern western, but one with a lot of cool gadgets. It was a ton of fun, while dealing with the subject of corporate tyranny, which is really happening in the world today. I knew I could take all of that and turn it into a thrilling ride and adventure.”
Another draw was the opportunity to work with Caviezel, and how closely the actor’s values mirrored Fitz’s. “What makes Jim the perfect guy to play Fitz is that both are so committed to their beliefs. Like Fitz, Jim lives a life that’s one with nature, but also one that’s precise in the way he looks at the world and other people. Jim brings so much love and energy to his performance, as well as a seriousness at times that is unmatched. He gives it everything he has: be it something fun or intense, Jim has a way of making that just explode on the screen.”
A Big-Screen Experience
Epic action. High-tech gadgetry. Stunning vistas and locations. A hero fighting seemingly impossible odds. It all adds up to Ghost Soldier being a high-octane theatrical experience.
Produder David Zelon notes, “Any film built on action and spectacle is best experienced on a big 40-foot screen, and sitting in a theater with people who, like you, are cheering for the good guy taking on ultra-powerful forces. It’s just a better experience.”
Screenwriter Chris Papasadero says the best reason to see Ghost Soldier in a cinema is that, “It’s about our shared ethos, values, and struggles – which is best experienced in a shared environment. Of course, we also have some big chest-thumping action and skull-rattling, high-tech gunfights, that are made for movie theaters.”
Eubank adds, “We want audiences to have a ton of fun with all our crazy visuals and action. There are a lot of treats for everyone to enjoy.”
For Jim Caviezel, the Ghost Soldier experience transcends its visuals and propulsive set pieces. “People want to see someone do the right thing, despite all the odds being stacked against them,” he points out. “We saw this phenomenon with Sound of Freedom. Give audiences a hero who stands for what’s true and they show up. The hunger is still there.”
