Straw Dogs

I thought this would be a garbage remake because beauty-obsessed Hollywood decided they had to have someone hot in the leading role, so instead of nerdy Dustin Hoffman we get handsome James Marsden. It turned out to be surprisingly well-made, effectively portraying the resentment many rural people feel toward city folk, the defensive arrogance spawned by feelings of inadequacy. As a Connecticut Yankee who lives in Florida, I've had personal experience with this, and Florida isn't even the REAL South. (though it's worth noting that the original was set not in the American South but in England). Of course, this is a movie, so everything is jacked up to 11 to increase the drama. Marsden does a decent job (I've always liked him as an actor), but part of the power of the original was seeing Hoffman's uber-nerd driven to extreme measures. Marsden never seems particularly scared or upset by what he's doing. Kate Bosworth gets to have a bit more agency than Susan George did in the wife role, and the makeup team did a good job of downplaying her looks. My biggest gripe was that while it's set in the South, nobody but James Woods bothers to even attempt a Southern accent. You're actors, people; this is what you're paid to do! The issue of race is only raised once, by Woods, who plays the oldest character in the movie, so I guess we're supposed to believe that the South has put racism behind it (it hasn't, as recent events have demonstrated all too clearly),

Its almost a rare thing to find any original ideas coming out of Hollywood these days. Its even rarer to find a remake that out shines it's source material. This new retelling of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is one of those rare finds. Though a lot has change in the forty years since Dustin Hoffman first picked up a gun and grew into a man, the story is as timeless as the Bible and the end result, though very bloody, is far less pessimistic than the 1970s' version.The story remains faithful with a few changes here and there. David Sumner (James Marsden; X-Men, Bachelorette) and his new wife Amy (Kate Bosworth; Blue Crush, Superman Returns) have come back to Amy's hometown to fix up her late father's home. Almost immediately, the town isn't exactly rolling out the red carpet for her Hollywood writer husband. In fact, they're downright rude (In one scene, David pulls out his credit card to pay for dinner and the waitress says "Cash only; its what us common folk use.". Sorry, b*tch but I'm as common as they come and I rarely, if ever carry cash.). But in strolls Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard; "True Blood", Battleship), Amy's ex boyfriend and the town's one time football legend. He seems friendly enough but his calm and cool demeanor masks an ugly side that few people outside his band of redneck friends know about.I'm a big fan of Peckinpah's original vision (I own the now OOP Criterion release bought from Amazon as well) but the man's pessimistic attitude to our kind as well as his mean streak towards women bleeds through and the movie suffered because of it. And the biggest and best change in the update is with the Amy character. While Susan George is a beautiful woman, she made Amy out to be like the Paris Hilton of her day. She was also a completely unsympathetic character so when Charlie and his friend rapes her, you pretty much felt she got what was coming. Kate, on the other hand, gives Amy a warmth and compassionate side so that when the rape occurs (though less graphic), the abuse she suffers makes it all more realistic that we're almost prompted to shut the movie off. Plus, she is very much in love with her husband despite his flaws and it shows where, in the original, I was scratching my head trying to figure out how this nerdy mathematician was lucky enough to land such a bombshell of a wife.I think the theaters are over flooded with remakes today so it's not surprising to know that this remake bombed out during its theatrical run. But if you're willing to give it a shot, you will not be disappointed. Just be warned that though the film isn't as bleak as its predecessor, its still very violent and not for the faint of heart. Also stars James Woods and Dominic Purcell (Primeval, "Prison Break")

Spoilers Ahead!I hadn't seen the original since I was very young but I remembered it well (probably because I was way too young to see something so traumatic). This film is very different on some fundamental levels.A. Original David - He is a war protester and pacifist which is unrelatable to the broader modern audience but was very relatable to an audience in the early 70's with the whole make love not war movement. David is also fighting against the violence of an English village as a whole and not just one group of friends so it is David finally facing the fact that he can't escape violence as it is a very human condition. He fights and he wins while he hates himself for doing so all the way. Yet, in the end he becomes the very thing he hates when he gets so much enjoyment out of "getting them all" and that becomes the most disturbing thing about the film. You walk away thinking that the animal side exists in us all just below the surface.Remake David - He is an effete, privileged intellectual who clearly can't relate to his wife's home town and spends his time smirking at it and trying to be superior. It's evident as soon as they drive into town and he hears the woman yell at her dogs barking. The look on his face is shock. Then in the bar he is clearly amused and appalled at the town folk. Even his offering of the job to Charlie smacks of elitism (a kind of oh, I'll throw some work the way of your poor, uneducated high school friends). He is shocked by the coach's behavior but he is too busy feeling superior to fully understand the danger.Like the original David, this one treats his wife as an trophy but not a person. He talks down to her on many occasions (chess is the best example) and does not seek her counsel about the very people she knows. He hires Charlie without asking if she even trusts him. You know from the start of this movie that their relationship is doomed.On a side note, I didn't feel Marsden did much with the character. I felt he was overplayed. I would have like to have seen what James Franco would have done with this character. I think we would have had a much more nuanced character.B. Original Amy - She was very confusing but David's sexism and her response was more understandable in the early 70's when men were still, for the most part, considered the head of the house and women merely servants and bed warmers without opinions or thoughts. Personally I never thought Amy enjoyed the rape as some did. I felt she began to respond to Charlie to minimize the damage to herself from the rape. She is not being raped by a stranger after all. She knows Charlie and tries to call on their past relationship to tame the beast in him. This is a world she knows and playing along is the only way she knows to survive with the least damage. There is still a bit of passive aggressive rebel in Amy who flashes Charlie and his men, but it's very childish and impulsive and she pays dearly for it (and I think it's not wholly unexpected). There is also a part of Amy that understands men like this and though she thinks David is a better "catch", there are parts of him she doesn't respect and parts of him she silently despises (his superiority over her). I also believe she doesn't tell him because she doesn't think he is capable of doing anything to protect her.Remake Amy - I felt the Amy in this movie was more transparent and had more depth. She is giddy coming into town but once she gets there the tension starts. The look on her face when she sees the church tells you something bad went down in there. She does it again in the barn and David asks if she is alright. It happens again when Charlie says he used to take care of her and she says, "But you didn't, did you." I felt my hair stand up when she said that and I wondered what had happened and from what Charlie didn't protect her. I get the feeling that this is why she left Charlie.With this Amy I have less understanding of why she stays in her marriage unless she is just star struck. This man clearly thinks little of her, bosses her around and uses her. The way she calls her father's house David's house is just bizarre in this day and age. It isn't his house, it's her house. This is her town. The one place the film falls down for me is in making me believe in this relationship. I don't see what David has that would make her go along with his behavior. This Amy is spunky and rebellious so why does she passively let him hire men she isn't really comfortable around? As the movie goes on it is clear something happened to her in the past. The Zydeco music that makes her uncomfortable, her reactions to certain places and her certainty that they not only killed her cat but that this is the precursor to further and escalated violence. She doesn't seem far enough under David's spell for her refusal to stand up to him to make sense. She seems more like that type that would angrily say, "Wake up you big idiot, I know this town and you don't!" It also made no sense whatsoever that she would run without a sports bra. That simply isn't comfortable and made no sense at all. It seemed to be done for pure gratification purposes and so fell very short.One thing that stays true is her reaction during the rape. She also gets to the point where she responds to Charlie to try to tame the beast. This Charlie is also more complicated so her actions there make more sense. It also makes more sense that she calls for Charlie to protect her from his friend. When he doesn't, you get the feeling they've been down this path before and that is probably the most disturbing of all. I wondered if this wasn't what she meant when she said he didn't take care of her. I felt like I was in Peyton Place where a town turns its back on the ugliness even at the expense of the victims. This is further solidified by her reaction to David when he returns. She indicates they both are out of their depth in this place.I think Bosworth's handling of this character was good. She is the right mix of spunk, rebellion and shaking fear. Her eyes and trembling hands/voice tell a great deal about the character's thoughts, emotions and even memories.C. Original Charlie - Charlie is another character that is very different than the original. In the original, Charlie is one dimensional and entirely animalistic. You have no sympathy or understanding for him at all. He's just a thug and nothing more. He's not developed in any way and the audience has no way to understand him. Perhaps Peckinpah did this on purpose to equate Charlie to the enemy in a war which you would not know in depth either. Personally I felt that the original David was such a jerk that the only way to see him as a protagonist was to make Charlie completely void of any character, but I think much of that was a generational thing (a young viewer versus an older viewer who would accept David's actions as normal).Remake Charlie - I have to give considerable props here to Alexander Skarsgard. No matter how Rudin directed this film or how it was written, it is Skarsgard's performance that changes Charlie to a more three dimensional character. This is quite a feat given the dark material. In Skarsgard's hands, Charlie comes off as man who plays the confident ex-jock, alpha male with some serious cracks in his persona. On the one side there is the way Charlie is with David - soft spoken, smiling, confident but always getting the jab in. He does it in such a way that David for the most part doesn't even see it. This is the swaggering Charlie who is sure that Amy will leave the effete intellectual for a real man. He is very sure of himself with David and he never falters there. I found myself actually enjoying some of Charlie's jabs at David because David was such a jerk. If Charlie hadn't gone as far as he did later, I would have wanted him to win. As it is, Skarsgard's Charlie manages to ramp up the tension with David at every turn and you find yourself tense whenever they come into contact. You are just waiting for Charlie to make an overt move to take Amy back and put David in his place.Yet, it is with Amy that Skarsgard's Charlie is the most complex. Rudin fell down on giving more backstory here, but despite that Skarsgard's performance, as well as Bosworth's, give you the sense that something big went on between those two in the past. It starts as soon as Amy tells Charlie he didn't really take care of her. You see that flicker in Charlie's big, blue eyes, that sudden drop in his confidence and swagger. Right away you know that it is true that he didn't protect her from something. It happens again when she glares at him after his men make remarks to her and then she flashes them from the window. A number of things cross Charlie's face - shock, betrayal, dread and desire. The way he starts watching the house is like he's fighting back the urge to storm it right then and there. The music is bothering him, his men's remarks are bothering him, his memories are bothering him and his desire to take what he thinks is his is barely restrained.The rape scene is probably the most complex one I've ever seen on film. This is when you know for sure that Charlie has some real issues beneath the surface. He has obviously deluded himself that Amy still wants him because of her actions in the window. He says as much to David at the church. He acts as though she will realize this and come back to him if he just makes her see how much more of a man he is and this includes in a sexual way. He is kissing her and touching her like they are still lovers and his forcible restraint of her is accompanied by looks of frustration that indicate he thinks she's simply playing hard to get. His frustration turns to rage as she continues to say no and resist and he continues to insist she wants him. Yet he also reassures her that he won't hurt her and tries to kiss her and hold her. The look on his face when it's over and he tries to be tender but she rebuffs him is complete shock. He really doesn't get it. It's almost like Charlie has deluded himself into thinking he has to force her to be unfaithful and then she'll realize he's the better man and that she still loves him. I honestly had to wonder if he would have protected her if she had responded at all at that point.There's also a completely strange dynamic going on with Charlie and Norm. Although Charlie seems to be in charge, Norm is always there in the background ominously looming. In the bar and on the roof, he is given a lot of screen focus which makes his character seem more important. He also seems to have a problem with Amy from the time he sees her in Blackie's. He gives her a look like she disgusts him several times with the first being in the bar. I can't decide if it's because of how he perceives she treats Charlie or the town in general. But it is the hold he seems to have over Charlie that is the most strange and again, I wish they had shown more backstory. There is no reason why Charlie, who obviously still cares so much about Amy, albeit in a very twisted way, would allow another man to rape her so brutally. I don't buy that Charlie did that because Amy exposed herself to his men. If this were the case he would have been more brutal in the rape and not at all like a lover. At the least he would have been a heck of a lot more conflicted. Like the original, Charlie seems surprised at first by Norm's appearance. It comes when we've seen the absolute stunned look on Charlie's face once he realizes how traumatized Amy is and how clearly she does not love him. He's in complete shock and uncomfortable with Norm's intrusion even as he holds her down. As he sits in the chair and watches the rape unfold, his face again shows many emotions, shock, hurt, disbelief, horror and finally resignation. What's so interesting here is that he seems resigned to Amy's fate as if he can do nothing. He is physically bigger and in better shape than Norm and he is also the boss. Again, I wondered what hold Norm had over him.In the final scenes Charlie is again like a man with serious fissures in his mental state. He finally goes to the rescue of Amy when Norm attacks again. He seems to think he can reason with Norm, but he definitely is trying to protect Amy at last. It's almost like he's reached a point similar to David where he finally has to stand up to something he's avoided for so long. Again I wondered what had happened when they were all young. I had the feeling that it definitely involved Norm. Charlie is shocked when Amy kills Norm. His face says he doesn't think she had it in her and clearly he didn't think she had that viciousness in her that she displays when she kills Norm. Yet he still clings to this twisted romantic notion that he can protect her from the consequences of all that has happened and that she will love him. In the end he's still trying to win her. He's so seriously twisted but you almost wonder what kind of upbringing could produce such a perverted perception of reality.Skarsgard's Charlie is this wonderful mix of deadly machismo and deluded romantic. As a viewer you hate Charlie, but you can't help feeling bad that whatever went wrong in his life was never fixed because you keep catching glimpses of something worthwhile in him. That's a pretty big accomplishment for any actor with a character like that. In the end, it is truly his movie.

Came in in perfect condition.

There are remakes and there are remakes. Granted, right now in Hollywood, you can't step on a celebrity star without tripping over a remake, but, sometimes they can work. Sometimes. If a film was made a while back that had a decent idea, but, for whatever reason, couldn't be truly realised, then why not give it a modern day makeover?Then you have the other kind of remakes.Straw Dogs is a remake of an ultra violent seventies movie about a man and woman who move into a new home in Cornwall, only to run into trouble with the locals. In the remake, the action has been moved to America, but the plot is basically the same.If you know what to expect then you're waiting for the violence to finally kick off. It does, eventually, but not before well over an hour of `build up.' This build up shows us how the young, nice, happy couple completely ignore all warning signs that they have a town full of redneck psychos all around them until it's too late and the afford-mentioned psychos are throwing bricks through their window and trying to lynch them.The originally Straw Dogs was only famous (or rather infamous) for its violence. Since then, we've seen far worse gore and brutality on screen and remaking it (quite faithfully to be fair) seems a little pointless. There isn't enough gore to keep the `gore-fiends' happy. It's too slow to be classed as a psychological thriller. And the characters are too stupid to know what's coming until it's too late.I think, if this was the first incarnation of Straw Dogs, it might be called a `home invasion' film. However, the fact that there are other films out there which have already secured that particular niche genre, makes this one even less original. Funny Games, The Strangers, that British one that I watched and completely forgot its name - all of those have beaten the Straw Dogs remake to the punch,However, if you're a fan of Kate Bosworth and like the idea of watching her running around in not very many clothes for the whole film, then you might get something out of it.

I liked this film. I know its a remake but having not seen the original I cannot compare it. Whilst watching the film I did get nervous for some of the characters which, I guess is a positive comment to the acting and the direction. It is one of those stories where you think, "if only they hadn't done that...". Alexander Skarsgard is a great bad guy but I kind of liked (fancied) him which I guess helps to understand the connection between him and Kate Bosworths character. As for James Marsden he is perfect in his role of the easy going husband who tries to keep the peace but steps up to protective husband with a convincing change rather than suddenly becoming a trained SAS/Navy Seal type action man. All round good film.

I would definitely recommend rewatching the original rather than wasting time watching this remake.Alexander Skarsgard was miscast as "the baddie" and there was no real build up of tension between any of the characters. I got irritated listening to James Woods bawling and shouting without really creating a sense of any real menace. The grand Finale was a big let down, just a lot of noise and cameras whizzing all over the place. A bit of a mess really. not a patch on the original despite their pretty faces.

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really good remake with great performances by james marsden and alexander whats-his name, I can`t spell it. starts off a bit slow and then boils to a great conclusion. remakes don`t usually work, but for me this one did.