The Showdown (2009)

Really Surprised!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The Showdown. I will pit this Western against any other movie world wide that cost $100,000 USD to produce. I have read complaints about the sound of the guns and the cleanliness of the saloon. Please! give me a break this movie was filmed 100% in Central Illinois not on some multi million dollar sound stage. Every outdoor scene was filmed outdoors (OMG what a novel idea). Real horses not some special trained stunt horses. Every actor did his or her own stunts. Granted it may not have been the best western ever made and some of the acting sucked. But the men and women that acted in it never claimed to be Hollywood actors. I dare any of the complainers that ragged on this movie to make a better one for the same money. The fact that none of the actors have received more then a copy of the movie in exchange for their performances doesn't change the facts that each one put in a lot of hard work creating this film. I bought it after seeing it. I am very proud of a Film made in little old Peoria.

I recently hired this unbelievably bad 'movie' from the video shop. I love Westerns. This attempt is absolutely dreadful. Incredibly bad acting all round, atrocious script, horrendous direction and a total waste of time and effort. Another reviewer praised this mess as a 'great amateur' attempt. The dude who wrote that must be a member of the director's family! Avoid this movie at all costs, at the video shop, in the $2 bin, passed on for free......whatever! The goose who wrote the 'review/opinion' on the front cover should immediately surrender his media membership card. He must be blind and deaf! Comparing this tragedy to 'High Noon' and 'Dances With Wolves' is a travesty of cinematic justice.

This is apparently somebody's home movie project gone horribly wrong. Note the list of "actors," all of whom share a handful of last names, and few of which have been in so much as a toothpaste commercial before, or since. The "director" hasn't directed anything else either, but at least he was an extra on an episode of Walker Texas Ranger.Needless to say the acting, writing, photography, direction and everything else are strictly amateur-hour. In all seriousness, if you filmed your local high school's drama club show, it couldn't be a whole lot worse. It makes the average after-school special look like Citizen Kane.Positive reviews and ratings are no doubt from the cast and crew. That is the ONLY possible explanation. In support of this, consider that as of this writing, neither of the two positive reviewers have reviewed a single other film on IMDb. In fact, they were written one day apart, and coincidentally right around the time that this direct-to-DVD crapfest would have been hitting the bottom shelf of your local video store.

This is a really great western. Hard to believe it was shot entirely in Illinois. I am from Texas and it sure fooled me. This is a truly wonderful experience and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. We need more of these independent films that show that people can make a movie an act of love and dedication. You can see that the folks that made this movie really cared about doing the best job possible and without being paid or having some kind of contract. It was created in their spare time and definitely took many hours of their free time to make it. Again all I can say is job well done folks, this is truly a labor of love. Hope to see more of these great endeavors.