“Limo Ride – The Greatest Bar Story Ever Told” screens Dec. 28 at Flora-Bama

“Limo Ride – The Greatest Bar Story Ever Told” screens Dec. 28 at Flora-Bama
“When your party is ending, theirs has just begun
By Fran Thompson
The true tale that is “Limo Ride – The Greatest Bar Story Ever Told” will return to the place where it all began – the Flora-Bama – for a screening with the directors on December 28 at 7 p.m.
Filmed mostly on Pleasure Island, the story is self described as cult nonfiction and recounts the incredible story of 10 Mobile based friends surviving their wildest night ever.
After hiring a sketchy limousine service, the rag-tag bunch embark on their New Year’s tradition, a party hard trip to the Flora-Bama for the annual Polar Bear Dip.
During the film’s 80 minutes, the Mobile based reconteurs find themselves kidnapped, stripped, stranded and left for dead, all within 24 hours of the first day of the year, although exactly what year is still being debated among those who were there.
Combining narration from the participants and feature-length re-creation with local actors, filmmakers Gideon C. Kennedy and Marcus Rosentrater take viewers on a hilarious ride about getting lost, getting found and getting hammered.
Rosentrater is animation director on an Emmy Award-winning TV show, Archer. Kennedy works at the Bicycle Shop, a popular Mobile bistro co-owned by one of the story’s narrators (Woody).
“When I started piecing together that this all happened on the same night, I thought it might make a good movie,’’ Kennedy said.
The film’s directors met in Atlanta a dozen years back and previously made short films together. Both directors agree this was one of the wildest and funniest stories they’ve ever heard, as well as one that could best be told visually. “Let the story drive the form,’’ is how Kennedy put it.
Characters such as Bobby, Josh, Noell, Rivers, Skippy, Milham and Woody are exposed to trespassing, kidnapping, assault, indecency, various intoxications, possession and hanging out by the bathroom in bars (According to Rivers, that’s a good way to meet women at the Keg.) during 24 hours of debauchery.
Kennedy said the film is a quintessential version of all of the subjects’ stories. The Gang of Ten may each have better stories in their arsenals, but together they created a perfect storm for a movie script.
“These guys are all good friends and fantastic storytellers,’’ Kennedy said. “They don’t watch movies because they live a movie on a daily basis. They are going to get into adventures no matter what they are doing.’’
The creators first started interviewing the subjekcts in the film back in 2010. Kennedy said during that process he realized that these unique characters should tell the story in their own words.
“If three out of the eight or ten people were good story tellers, that would’ve been awesome,’’ he said on a recent SlackJaw Punks podcast. “But when I got them to sit down, it was like ‘man-oh-man,’ this guy is just as good. They all have great southern accents and nicknames, and they all work as characters.
“They can all be boiled down to the essence of the members of a tribe,’’ he added. “This guy’s the chieftain. This guy’s the joker. This guy’s the fighter. They all fit perfectly into their rolls for the story.’’
Kennedy said only one professional actor, Richard Tyson, appears in the film.
“I cast people I knew around town that had physical or personalty traits that I felt matched up well with the original person,’’ he said. “The guy who plays John Milham is also a drummer and has the same laid back demeanor. The guy who plays Woody, Michael McManus, has the same big, shining grin.’’
Completed in 2014, Limo Ride garnered two encore screenings at the Atlanta Film Festival and has been accepted into numerous other fests around the world, winning the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Indie Grits Film Fest.
The film has also screened at The Keg in Orange Beach, site of the film’s second act.
Limo Ride has played 1,000 times around the world, but the audience reactions in Orange Beach were the best and most raucous, according to Kennedy.
“They loved it. We don’t want a staid, quiet audience. We want people to make noise. We hope we get the same response at the Flora-Bama,’’ he said.
Although they retain 100 percent ownership of the product, through hard work, the filmmakers have been able to make Limo Ride available on iTunes, Amazon, VHX, DVD, Blu-Ray and (for $9.99) through the film’s website, limoridemovie.com.
“There are a lot of ways to go about getting a movie out there in the 21st century,’’ Kennedy said. “You just gotta’ keep working at it.’’
The two filmmakers met and started making films together when both worked as clerks at a family run and independent video store in Atlanta back in 2004. With that in mind, they sent copies of Limo Ride and a letter to every video store in the United States they could find – 100 packages – with a special shout-out to Videodrome, the only remaining video rental store in Atlanta.
“Upon this release of our first feature film, we felt it only appropriate to pay tribute to those that remain by giving you a copy,’’ they wrote in the letter.
“As you know, stores like yours are more than their catalogues. They are places for people to gather and commune over stories they swap. This can alter the course of lives. We’re proof.’’
The film includes a score from Neil Byrne, who has been playing, recording, creating, booking, promoting, selling and bringing underground music to Mobile for the past 20 years. Original songs from various Mobile bands are also on the soundtrack.
“We decided to play with the documentary form to tell what would typically be low-brow narrative fare, namely a raunchy ensemble comedy,’’ Kennedy said in story he wrote for Moviemaker Magazine. “We not only wanted to capture that staple of bar room stories—the bad night out—but also use the advantages of both sides of the doc/narrative divide to answer the problems of its production.
“First-time moviemakers could do worse than look toward the documentary field’s barebones methods,’’ he added.
Kennedy said the directors parked an RV across from the Flora-Bama on New Year’s Eve to use as a base camp and set up cameras in three spots to shoot the New Year’s Day Polar Bear Dip.
Not surprisingly, one of the more difficult logistical tasks for that shoot was getting all the actors to wake up and make their way from Mobile to Perdido Key for the noon plunge.

Pictured: (Above) Co-director Marcus Rosentrater directs cast and crew on the set of Limo Ride.