The Stand at Paxton County

Contrary to the initial claim of the first reviewer, just a cursory research on the web verifies that the basics of this story are true. And in real life the judge threw out the charges of animal abuse and ordered the animals be returned to their rightful owner. And nowhere in the movie is the mistreatment of animals glorified. It is a story about a conspiracy to claim falsely that animal abuse HAD occurred in order to seize the ranch. But enough of correcting obvious misstatements in reviews.

In reality, this movie is actually a well crafted suspense piece that you can relate to even if you have never been on a ranch. For those looking for extended gun fights and other lengthily episodes of gratuitous violence, look elsewhere. The emphasis here is on suspense, not violence. And there's that other subtle message from this story, viz. should business owners of all pursuits be a bit apprehensive about their government's growing penchant to shut them down and seize their property, whether based on animal abuse or health concerns.

I recommend you give the movie and Netflix a chance. It will be well worth you time.

This film is a surprise, predictable plot - but for some reason I found it very compelling and interesting, it has a slow first half as it sets up the characters and main story line. It also identifies some serious issues with the way that laws are made, applied and abused.

The first thing that jumps out on me is that the Fergus Falls newspaper is in the WRONG state. Fergus Falls is in MN. I was in ND when this was going on, it was a terrible story but why make things up? Good movie once you get over the errors.

Good story presenting the abuse of power by activist groups taking advantage of ranchers. The movie presents a real problem with overreach perpetrated by special interest groups who created loopholes in laws, passed in the name of helping needy animals. Acting is decent and story is good, but gets a little "conspiracy " focused. But the story needs to be told. Extremists who don't want animals used at all in ranching push bad laws into law, then harass ranchers to go out of business.

Very interesting true story that I feel needed to be told. This was film editor Brett Hedlund's directorial debut, and although his inexperience showed, especially in directing his cast, it was still decent for his first visit to the rodeo. Newb writers Carl Morris and David Michael O'Neill put the story together quite well and smoothly, but the pacing certainly needed a pick-up, as the 102 min runtime felt long and dragged out. I'm glad though that this film wasn't Hollywood glorified. It felt more like a Lifetime TV show, and that's not a bad thing. Cinematography was good, and the score and sound very fitting. An enjoyable film, but you'll need patience before anything really interesting starts to happen. It's a 7/10 from me.