Too much of everything

i must have seen a different film!!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

After having watched The Decoy with its cast of absolutely no one you will recognize at all, I'm still wondering about what I looked at. Justin Kreinbrink who both directed and starred in The Decoy should have gotten himself a far more coherent story.Some nasty outlaws shoot a miner and take over his mine for no particular reason other than their need for a headquarters. But aside from their usual crimes of outlawry, someone who has a reason for wanting to kill the town banker hires these guys to kill him and his wife. Their daughter happens to be married to Kreinbrink who is a deputy sheriff. The patsy they decide to frame is a deaf mute foster son of the banker. The man is mute, but not stupid he won't write out any denial.Justin, if someone gives you another crack at a western, make it one the audience will not be scratching its collective head after viewing.

We rented the DVD hoping for a good western. The film was pretty and the scenes reasonable, but the ideas were very bad. Here are my problems with the film.In the first part, why exactly did the bad guy kill the mine owner? Not really connected to the movie except to establish how bad he was and to have a hideout.The bank employee gone bad just acts too poorly to convincingly decide to hire killers to off his employers. At least keep us guessing. No character developed at all for the bank owners or the bank employee.Very long delay in much of anything happening.Absurd premise that Martin still needed to see the judge after the gang confessed to killing the in-laws. Even more absurd that he confesses to judge and judge will not listen to the sheriff guy. even more ridiculous that Martin his hung and rope breaks then the sheriff takes him at gunpoint to finally head back to his town and save his wife from the bad bank employee. Wouldn't he just return after the quick dispatch of the gang to save wife and arrest bad bank guy? Just send the judge a note that gang confessed before being killed on trail????!!! Overall, very sad acting and no point to movie.

THE DECOY is one of those independent productions, made by obvious newcomers, but it doesn't have all the usual flaws that sink most such films. It has a definite story, it has adequate acting, the photography is very good, the hero and the bad guy are both formidable men, and the background music isn't overdone. This is a DVD New Release, so people will be looking here to see if it's worthwhile. I don't know where all the 10's come from, as there's no way this film is that good --- even if you're the filmmaker's mother. The last film we saw at a theater was Warner's trashing of J K Rawlings much-loved and excellent book, Order of the Phoenix. In comparing THE DECOY with PHOENIX, consider that PHOENIX (as made by Warners) had no story, certainly no acting was allowed by the director, the photography was dreadful, and the wall-of-sound overbearing musical score was just a mess. I rated Phoenix a "1" because the scale doesn't go any lower. THE DECOY is 4 times better -- in all regards.If you have the opportunity, give THE DECOY a chance. Remember, this isn't "Decoy 3 -- the Shootout" or any such nonsense. It's original. If your expectations aren't overblown by the foolish "10" scores here, you might just enjoy the film on its own terms.

I've seen a preview of this Western. It is definitely a low budget effort - but made with a lot of heart. First off and worthy of immediate mention are the locations. This looks and feels like a Western. The acting is better than average at this level and I really liked the guy who played Martin. What perhaps could be improved with this picture is the work in post. The editing could be a big sharper, the sound mix and little richer and some more compositing and filtering could really bring to life some excellent shots. But what of the story? Actually the underlying plot is quite good. A mute man is framed as a 'decoy' to take the heat for a murder - all to cover up a bank robbery. His friend the sheriff must then escort him to the hanging. But the film is a little bit slow in getting going. I'd have preferred it if it had featured more of this journey and beefed up the conflict between this two friends / adversaries. Even if this meant we saw some of the preamble in flashback. All in all - I'll be checking out other films from these guys as this first feature shows promise and grit.