Livingston officials allow ‘Pawn Shop’ film to continue in Montana

After public comment at a nearly seven-hour Livingston City Commission meeting Monday night on whether a polarizing film could continue shooting in city limits, vice chair James Willich rifled through his notebook.

“24 pages of notes,” he muttered. “That’s a new record!”

By the end of the night, commissioners voted unanimously to allow the Daily Wire-affiliated movie about an ICE agent doing battle with Antifa protesters and MS-13 gang members to continue. The decision came two days after the commission temporarily paused operations on set, and served as an added plot point in a weeks-long drama over the film’s production in the southwest Montana town since filming began in late September.

The commission’s decision means that filming — on a set featuring a fictional Minneapolis pawn shop and Korean grocery store — can recommence. Filming is slated to end on Saturday. Producers pledged to abide by permit regulations, including keeping a local food pantry open and accessible, reining in private security activity, and continuing signage and notifications to impacted neighbors.

“I’m sad that we’re all gathered here under these circumstances,” local producer Ari Novak testified. “In five days from now, much of this film crew will leave. I will still be your neighbor. And I want to be a good neighbor to people I have like-minded ideas with and disagree with.”

More than 120 people crammed into the Livingston City Commission meeting, sitting cross-legged on the floor and spilling over into the hallway and adjacent rooms. Roughly 150 more tuned in online. Over about two weeks, news stories and social media accounts had spiraled over the drama: This tension over a movie in a small Montana town appeared to be a microcosm of immigration and culture-war drama seizing communities all over the nation.

At first, opponents of the film took issue with its content: A leaked copy of the script — working title “Pawn Shop” — features thinly veiled allusions to both the murder of Renee Good and the saga of Kilmar Albrego Garcia, both depicted through a conservative, tough-on-immigration lens. In the script, a copy of which was reviewed by Montana Free Press, the film’s protagonist shoots a protester as she drives maniacally into his car, killing his law enforcement partner. A detained immigrant claims to be innocent, but later turns out to be a key player in MS-13.

While the film contains echoes of real-life incidents, the bulk of the movie is an over-the-top action flick starring Danny Trejo and Harvey Keitel, according to a leaked call sheet — a movie opponents criticized as rife with guns, gore, explosions and conservative tropes.

“It’s 87 pages of bullshit,” protester Brooklyn Wilde said in a late September interview.

But soon after filming began, detractors of the production took issue with the process, too. Producers hadn’t adequately notified the public of the shoot, they said, and especially not of the violence involved. The shoot involved firing blanks and igniting explosions, theatrics that shocked the film’s residential neighbors and spurred concerns over public safety. Many members of the public also described to reporters and on social media feeling intimidated, scared and harassed by heavily armed security guards hired by the film company to keep the public off streets closed for the movie set.

The closures particularly impacted the Livingston Food Resource Center. “We were not notified of the plans to film,” the organization said in an early October press release. They said the film’s security forces stopped cars and bikes trying to access the center, driving attendance at their food pantry to an 18-week low.

Fielding community concerns, the Livingston City Commission held an emergency meeting on Saturday morning, while the movie filmed about a quarter mile away. No supporters of the film attended. Ultimately, the commission voted to temporarily pause the movie’s permit.

“I think this has been a runaway train,” Commissioner Cindy Daniels said at the time. “I think that they’ve taken advantage of the situation to make their movie that they’re going to profit off of.”

At Monday’s meeting, producers of the film showed up to voice their side of the story. Lead producer Dallas Sonnier described dealing with genuine security concerns as furor over the film escalated: A truck drove through the barricades marking the street closure on the first day of filming, he said, the driver screaming obscenities at cast and crew. Amanda Presmyk, another producer, said protesters also yelled “cut” and “action” during stunt sequences, creating potentially dangerous distractions. “It was only then that I decided to hire professional security to protect the crew and maintain the permitted road closures,” Sonnier said.

Several commenters who spoke in favor of the movie production argued the commission’s decision to pause the permit was based on politics, not law. “Government cannot suppress lawful expression simply because an audience objects to its message,” Sonnier said. “A film permit should depend on lawful compliance, not approval of the story being told.”

City attorney Jon Hesse said the question before the commission was narrow, and unrelated to the content of the production: Had the film production violated the conditions of its permit? The answer to that would decide whether, and how, commissioners would allow the operation to continue.

“Please honor the permit the city issued to us and reinstate it tonight,” Presmyk urged, doubling down on the producers’ commitment to seeing the project through. “We will finish the movie either way.”

Livingston resident Katy Canetta, who lives near the filming location, said the pushback to the production at Saturday’s meeting had nothing to do with the subject matter of the film. “It was about the terrorism 2nd Street has been experiencing at the hands of armed guards in paramilitary gear with guns who have been harassing vulnerable people and using violence and intimidation to enforce the closure of public property for private gain.”

Taylor Wallace, owner of The Gem, a coffee shop adjacent to the film set, said he was never notified about the shoot. He said staff couldn’t perform basic duties like taking out the trash without being harassed by security guards. Ultimately, he closed his shop, fearing for workers’ safety. “This film’s inability to effectively notify neighboring businesses and residents led to fear, chaos, and ultimately risk,” he said. “Nobody should feel unsafe in their workplace or at their home.”

The city of Livingston has a minimal framework for issuing film permits. The binding document has only a few boxes to check and blanks to fill in. Officials said over two weeks of filming, the production will bring in only a little more than $5,000 in permit revenue to the city. The city does reserve the right to revoke the permit due to public safety concerns.

“Food security is a public safety concern,” Livingston local Bex Frucht said. “Misinformation is a public safety concern. Mental health is a safety concern. We are enduring all of this because this production came into our town, literally guns blazing, without comprehensive, proper notice. And they were able to take advantage of our lax regulations.”

Both sides of the movie debate expressed fear and insecurity, but opponents and proponents of the film directed the blame at one another. Film crew and even security told commissioners their personal information had been doxxed, and that they’d received death threats and harassment due to their involvement with the production.

The movie’s proponents also stressed that the film industry was an economic engine for the city. Richard Gray, co-founder of the old-Western-style Yellowstone Film Ranch roughly 30 minutes south of Livingston, said movie productions had injected tens of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs into the region in the last decade alone. “If you boot a film out of town because of things that could be fixed, it’s just a really bad look,” he said. “And it will severely impact our film industry.”

Yetta Stein, a poet and executive director of Elk River Arts and Lectures, took issue with that idea. “A brief economic boon is not worth the safety of my neighbors,” she said. “I also find this whole conversation to be a bit of a distraction from the important work of running our town.”

As attendees trickled out of the meeting as the hours wore on, commissioners debated the future of the city’s film regulations.

“We don’t have the ordinances and codes in place to meet the wants of our community,” Commission chair Melissa Nootz said. “The things people are asking for, we haven’t written those laws and policies yet.”

Approached for comment as attendees left the meeting, Sonnier declined an interview until after the film wraps. But the producer gave a tired yet vigorous thumbs up after the commission’s vote. He said in testimony he would be on set to resume the film at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning.

This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.