The Stand at Paxton County

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.

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.

It's a 6 quality movie, but a 9 quality message, so it gets a 7.

The end is way to much 80's - 90's style, contrived, but the first 3/4 of it is really good.

The message is that no matter how nice and froofy Humane Society NAZIs pretend to be, they are out to kill you, the animals, anything alive that they can get their bloody hands on, while smiling and praising themselves and making money from it. There are a lot of people that care for animals and people out there, but they don't work for humane organizations or government.

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.

My family lived this nightmare. The following is just my opinion based on what I know about the true story and the movie.

There were some liberties taken, but the people involved in the production took a lot of time and effort to keep to the majority of the true story; yes it is "based on," but the corruption of a sheriff who had lost his way, the fact that a vet wielded her power to try and take all the animals that were worth money (they left the dog and cats, but the vet was going to get all the mares that were expecting babies), the law was voted down by the voters but passed in back door legislation and was sponsored by The Humane Society of the United States are part of the true story.

Early on when I was told how it was going to have originated (an anonymous complaint from out of state) it all sounded a little too conspiracy theory to me too.

Until it happened. Exactly like I had been told it would. The Humane Society of the United States also provides training to our law enforcement and they train that minor every day things are "criminal negligence."

I do not think it was a coincidence that The Humane Society of the US had provided training to the sheriffs department before this ordeal started.

By the grace of God we prevailed; but what would you do if they showed up at your door?

Is your Sheriff an honest person with integrity who will stand up for citizens rights? Or will they fold to special interests that make donations of equipment in addition to political donations?

Feel free to take a look at the page TheStandAtPaxtonCounty true story on Facebook. I outline what is Hollywood and what was the true story.

If the movie is about 80% true to the real story still propaganda? Not if you ask me; I was there and these type of cases are happening across America everyday and I know that now because it happened to my family.