Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Brian Presley, Defiant Screen Entertainment.
Inspired by a forgotten chapter of post-Civil War America, Hostile Territory is a stirring western action-adventure.
It features a talented cast including Brian Presley (USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage), Craig Tate (King Richard, 12 Years A Slave), Matt McCoy (The Ice Road), Lew Temple (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) and Brad Leland (Deepwater Horizon).
It’s based on an incredible true story of the orphan train movement, a program to relocate thousands of children who found themselves orphaned, their fathers killed in battle, their mothers taken by disease or grief.
Returning home once the war ends, former POW Jack Calgrove (Presley) learns his wife Molly (Jill North) had died during that time, and his children Lizzy (Emma Presley), Lily (Ruby Presley) and Charlie (Jackson Presley) were put on an orphan train and sent westward into foster care deep in the American west. Calgrove forms a team with an ex-soldier called Desmond Richards (Tate) – Alice (Natalie Whittle, Orbital Redux 2018, Bi the Way 2021), a mother looking for her lost child – and a group of Native American gunmen to intercept the train that’s crossing enemy lines and save his children before it’s too late.
The film was written and directed by the multi-talented lead actor, Brian Presley, who said: “There is no mountain and no enemy you wouldn’t face to go save your children. The main theme of the film is that there is good and evil within all. Life is meant to be travelled together, regardless of your gender or the colour of your skin.”
The film focuses more on drama than gunfight thrills.
- Hostile Territory is out on DVD and on digital platforms
