Over the last few weeks, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan known only as “Ranger” has been single handedly fighting off members of a Colombian drug cartel who have been operating throughout San Benito County. Standing alone, Ranger has engaged the enemy in places as disparate as the dry riverbeds of Paicines, a rough and tumble barroom in Tres Pinos and a warehouse at the oldest business in Hollister.
It is all part of the excitement of “Ranger,” a feature film by director Nico Quijano, which has been filming at various locations in the county since May 12, including the airport, Hazel Hawkins Hospital, Spendwise, TAG Paintball and McKinnon’s Lumber, all in Hollister and the 19th Hole in Tres Pinos. Hollister is being used as a stand-in for Texas in his story of a service member coming home to a world that has changed.
“Ranger decides after 22 years of being in the military that it’s time to hang it up and retire,” Quijano said. “He gets back to his father’s ranch in Texas and finds the town is full of crime, chaos, human trafficking and drugs. And Ranger just wants to do what’s right.”
Quijano, a Hollister resident, has been an actor and stuntman for 30 years and is credited with work on 28 films on the Internet Movie Database.
“I’ve been in films probably since 1987, doing stunts, stunt driving and fight choreography,” he said.
“Over the last few years, I’ve started getting bigger parts and doing more military advising for films. Now I’m actually directing and producing a film and all the fight and stunt choreography with my buddy Josh Burgess, private military contractor.”
Quijano also wrote the film, a process he found more complicated than he had expected.
“The story just poured out of me,” he said. “At one point, I hit writer’s block but I took a break, came back and just kept going. I started adding more to the character development and added the technical stuff, like ‘interior night’ and ‘daytime.’ I also took classes on things like directing and film distribution.”
Moving from being an actor or stuntman to being the writer, director and producer of the project also created its own complications. He said running the shoot by himself has been difficult to manage.
“You are wearing all the hats,” he said. “Like when you have over 50 extras on the Wren’s Ranch and everybody comes up to you with problems when you’re trying to act. You want to make sure you’re taking care of people, feeding people, paying people and all that time you’re also worried about safety and making sure that everything is going right.”
Jeff Brady, who plays cartel kingpin Mocha Quintero, said that the county has proven to be a great environment for filmmaking.
“We did some of the action scenes a few weeks ago,” he said, “and the natural backdrop of the hills and the dry riverbed had an amazing kind of natural beauty that was a nice counterpoint to the ruthlessness of the story itself. And all the people we meet here have been so gracious and so willing to support us in our work.”
Quijano said the high point for him so far was the first day of shooting at TAG paintball.
“We were shooting an Afghanistan scene all the way back by the creek,” he said. “It was the hardest scene to shoot but I got to see my project start living, with everything I wrote just coming together. It was really a touching moment, to be honest.”
A veteran himself, Quijano said one of his goals with the film was to employ as many veterans as possible.
“We wanted to give them this opportunity,” he said. “There’s hardly any filmmaking here in Hollister and we want to keep it going. We want to do another film and another film after that. We want to teach people about filmmaking and acting and give them the kind of opportunities you see more up in the Bay Area or Los Angeles.”
Quijano said that, for him, the satisfaction has just been in making the film and in the reception the community has given his crew.
“I would say 99.9% of the people have been very helpful,” he said. “A few people weren’t too sure what was going on with the action and the prop guns and they come up to us, wondering what we were doing. But everyone ends up being behind us and being supportive.”
Filming concludes sometime next week and Quijano has already begun negotiations with several streaming channels for distribution.
We need your help. Support local, nonprofit news! BenitoLink is a nonprofit news website that reports on San Benito County. Our team is committed to this community and providing essential, accurate information to our fellow residents. It is expensive to produce local news and community support is what keeps the news flowing. Please consider supporting BenitoLink, San Benito County’s public service, nonprofit news.