Genres

Visitors Review

savannapink 2012-05-25 09:41:27

STRAW DOGS Kicks Ass!

I caught a screening of STRAW DOGS last week. Rod Lurie directed atight film that kicks major ass."Firstly, Lurie has assembled a dynamite cast: James Marsden, KateBosworth, Alexander Skarsgard, James Woods and even Walton Goggins (whois absolute nitro-glycerin in FX's Justified) has a small role. Thefact that Lurie was able to attract this cast speaks volumes for hisreputation. Is this an award-worthy film? No. Is it a good time at themovies? Hell yes! "A Hollywood screenwriter (Marsden) and his wife (Bosworth) are movinginto a home in his wife's small rural hometown so he can write his newscript, Stalingrad, in peace and tranquility. She had a small role in aTV show he once wrote but we get the impression she's washed up now(she's one of the many Straw Dogs in the film, a.k.a people who peakedto early but are now hollow and easily knocked-around and broken). "Marsden is fantastic in the film. In fact, he's never been better. Heexhudes kindness and decency. He plays the soft city boy with a heart."The happy couple settle into their countryside mansion in the middleof a very isolated forest. In town, they run into Bosworth's old flame(Skarsgard). Skarsgard is everything that Marsden is not -- tall,rugged, manly and dangerous. The quintessential bad boy that all girlsare attracted to in their teens but eventually grow out of... or dothey? "There are two themes running through the film. The first (and I'm nottoo sure I agree with this) is that a man can only be a man if heresorts to violence in order to defend his wife. Lurie also straddles adangerous line in the film by presenting us with a wife who is aprovoker. "Marsden kindly hires Bosworth's ex-boyfriend to fix the roof of thebarn... and then Bosworth proceeds to jog around the forest in skimpyclothing (no bra, barefoot). She then complains to her husband that herformer flame and his crew of roofers are eye-raping her. Marsden everso kindly (and he could've been an ass but wasn't) suggests that maybeshe should consider wearing a bra next time. Bosworth is obfuscated bythis suggestion. So what does she do? Goes upstairs, opens the bedroomwindow and proceeds to strip in front of Skarsgard and his crew. It'san ambivalent, tough scene that says a lot about feminism, powerstruggles in couples and highlights that actresses (in real life and onfilm) are a loopy bunch. Bosworth shines in this film. Playing bothbeautiful, sexy and aloof. A tough combo but she pulls it offadmirably. "Therein lies the second theme of the film: Do women want the stable,dependable good-guy or do they have deep subconscious yearnings for abad boy? "So far the film is great. Fun set-up and it's fun to seeMarsden create his writing workspace - - chalkboard with scenes andnotes in a lovely dream office, etc. Marsden is once again great in thefilm, despite his thankless role -- the pussy-fied husband who mustgrow a brass- coated set of testicles by the end of the film so hisSouthern Wife can finally respect him... and he eventually does, in arealistic, believable fashion to boot. I won't go into spoilerterritory. There are a few nifty surprises and great performances allaround. "The siege-like ending is gangbusters. Violent and veryun-Lurie-like. Marsden rises to the occasion and all the plot strandscome together. Woods is great as a drunken high-school football coachwho doesn't want his teenage daughter flirting with the localdevelopmentally delayed man (Dominic Purcell). This is a remake of the Pekinpah classic that is famous for it'sambivalent rape scene. Therefore, I'm not spoiling anything by sayingthat -- "Yes, there is a fairly graphic rape. Yes, Bosworth isambivalent in the scene. Does she fight off her rapist as hard as shecould during the rape? Nope. Does she kinda like it? Sure seemed likethat to me (which will surely infuriate the feminists out there).There's also an incredibly satisfying final kill that involves a bear-trap."Straw Dogs is a good, solid movie with great, crowd-cheering moments."

johnno-17 2012-05-24 23:45:53

Dull, unnecessary remake

Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" remains a most disturbing, morallyambiguous confrontation between the brute code of uneducated farmboyswith the complex attempts at rationalization by a sophisticated,neurotic, hyper-educated urban college professor attempting to escapethe responsibilities of living in an increasingly complex world. It isalso a magnificently constructed motion picture, elegantlyphotographed, brilliantly edited, hauntingly scored, with powerhouseperformances from every actor.This wholly unnecessary remake on the other hand is amateurish swill -banal photography, drama-class acting (and why not? all the charactershave been reduced to caricature), and soap-opera rewriting. It'sbasically a television movie with some sex and violence thrown in forthe fan-boy crowd. It's even got the requisite car-chases, andsupposedly pointed dialog about adultery and motivations, blah blahblah.Graceless, visually dull, with no sympathetic characters, but a lottaboom! crash! foe those who think loud noises and pyrotechnics make upfor lack of intelligence and imagination.

Sword Dancer 2012-05-24 02:07:51

Without comparisons, nevertheless a poor movie

STORYLINE As a person that watches really tons of movies per month, iacquired a certain taste in movies. Let's see the storyline Talkingabout the storyline, it is quite poor. The happenings are really fewand would perhaps deserve a short movie. The time/importance given tosome events is or really too long or definitely too short. It's allabout time-events management, that in this movie is actually quiteroughly made.CHARACTERS The most important thing of a character, is the "roundness".The development in a movie can also not exist in a personality, i admit"flat" or "clichet" or "semi-stereotype" thugs, that have a functionbut are really well made.Here all we got are guys with huge neon lights on the head "excheerleader of the town", "jerk city addicted necrotic professor","dangerous menacing bully".Oh come on this is really childish. i could see from the first precisemoment that appeared the face of a person, who he could have been, whathe would have done.Moreover, the dresses were like uniforms. The redneck wet-no-armt-shirt, the thin see- nipple-through vest of the good-looking woman...oh PLEASE.This is predictable. If we all liked watching "The Teletubbies" and wewere 3 years old kids, perhaps we would really appreciate this feature,but for grown up human beings, i define it quite "ANNOYING"Without spoiling, i want to invite all the people to observe theWoman's behavior. Absolutely and unreasonably ambivalent, with no realfunction. There is non sense and non sense. This is just another neonlight "i am sexually unsatisfied!". i simply had problems in understanding the stupidity of many actions orspeeches made by the characters. No way they looked convincing. ARTISTIC REALIZATIONphoto, camera corners, landscapes...props... well all right, nothing tosay. nothing special but fine.CONCLUSIONSimply watch it if you want to have confirms that you can recognize themovie stereotype. it is a guessing game for dummies. If you want mindpuzzling, action thrilling, artistic or philosophic scenes,FORGET ABOUT IT. this is a simple movie for simple minds, with nothingspecial, and some irritating features.Borrow it from a friend, don't buy it.

Joe Holleman 2012-05-23 08:32:57

For the most part, Lurie's remake serves as a credible update to the original, and the performances from Skarsgard, Marsden and Bosworth are solid.

msoysta 2012-05-21 22:08:27

Redneck redo with one redeeming factor

There is a synopsis that I will not bore you with as you can read it onthe IMDb page. This is just another city boy versus good ole boys typeof movie where the city slicker finds out that he can be a homicidalmaniac too. Meanwhile, his wife Amy, an obviously mentally unstableindividual, flirts between wanting to encourage her old flame andwanting to leave to go back to the safety of the city. Early on in themovie I thought perhaps she was even plotting to have him killed by thelocals and go back to her hunky former flame.I say the lead female, Amy, is portrayed as a whack job because shetaunts her old flame, strips at the window, jogs by the men workingwhile wearing no bra and skimpy clothes, yet expects some kind ofrespect from these local boys hired to work on a roof. Now in no way amI saying that when she tells Charlie, her ex played by AlexanderSkarsgard, that she does not want to have sex that she is being awilling participant. This is clearly a rape at this point. However, theway that her character has switched from heated longing while gazingupon him, and who wouldn't since looking at Skarsgard is the onlyredeeming factor of this movie, to total disinterest is totallyunbelievable. Had she maybe been enticed, then changed her mind afterthinking about her husband or something it may have been believable butas it was portrayed it just came out as plane stupid. Then this otherguy appears and it seems to me that Skarsgard is not too pleased aboutthis so why he would allow it I don't know and the movie doesn't tellus or set up any kind of revenge deal that would give me a clue.This movie is the worst of typical southern stereotyping, along withsome abuse of the mentally disabled, fake looking dead deer, characterswe don't care enough about to hate or like and if it were not forgetting to see sexy Skarsgard sans shirt, well, it would have no reasonto exist. Please find him better movies so I don't have to sit throughthis again. I know it was a remake but one that shouldn't have beenremade.

Wilson Morales 2012-05-21 19:24:50

What good is this remake, if it's not disturbing, nor controversial, but plain and ultra-low on shock value.

Kim Newman 2012-05-21 09:18:31

Lurie's remake doesn't bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table. The thick fug of moral ambiguity, so disconcerting in Peckinpah's film, is missing, replaced by certainties rife in modern horror.

lynn-ash 2012-05-21 08:49:21

* Spoilers - Don't let them in! - Spoilers *

And in the case of David: when they invite you "in," don't go. One ofthe themes of this film was xenophobia. If you're not like us, youcan't be one of us. Symbolic of that is the local treatment of the manwho is retarded. "We take care of our own." Well, no, you don't.Charlie didn't "take care" of Amy in the past, and he's not going to doso in the present or the future. The coach couldn't take care of hisdaughter; she would get out from under his watchful eye.Amy and David's "crime" was to "come in" in the first place. Theydidn't "fit in." To show how they didn't belong, the workman walkedinto their house, went further in by opening their refrigerator andtaking what he wanted. Their bedroom was violated; another interiorspace invaded: the closet. Further violation was the killing andhanging of the cat and placed in that interior space. The irony partwas, "you can't leave, either," when David left the church service- heplaced himself further out. He rejects their invitation to come intothe circle of men in the booth in the bar because they had almostkilled him on the road into town, and he didn't trust them. Hisrejection pushed him further out, but if he had joined them, he stillwould have been out. The time he did go with them, hunting in theforest, again, he didn't belong there. Charlie and his friend went intoDavid and Amy's home, and into Amy herself. When they both tried to go"back into" society, attending the football game, Amy's flashbacksprevented her from ever being in with them – and by not telling David,she didn't let him in, either. Of course, the home invasion was thelast "straw." And David kept them all out in the end.The Peckinpaugh Straw Dogs was very layered and complicated and he usedfive editors to make it come together. Hoffman's David was a sociopathwho only did things to please himself. Marsden's David was an alien ina foreign land, who made mistakes of dress and language as well asbehavior. He had a breezy, almost dismissive way about him; he treatedthe locals: cheerfully and offhand. He covered his anger with a smileand falsely friendliness. They almost had him killed on the road, andhe bought them $100 worth of beer, rubbing it subtly in their facesthat he could do it, he could afford it. He tried to kill them withkindness. James Marsden, please do not participate in another remake. No one willtreat you fairly. People will compare you to an actor who played yourpart two years before you were born. I think the acting was superb; some were miscast, and one went over thetop, but that's his style (James Woods). Contrary to many others'opinion, I thought James Marsden was the standout. My favorite scene iswhen he played the Cajun song on the phonograph and stood cleaning hisglasses on his shirt. He wasn't going to let them in, either, and ifthey did get in, they'd suffer for it.

Lisa Giles-Keddie 2012-05-20 08:42:48

As close to the original as Lurie's well-made remake is, there remains a sizeable question mark over why Straw Dogs was revisited at all.

smokehill retrievers 2012-05-20 06:49:08

A Real Dog

While there are probably people out there who could pull off a remakeof the classic Straw Dogs, this isn't the group.I tried real hard to like this film since I'm a huge fan of WaltonGoggins, but this should have been left on the shelf.The actress playing the wife did a rather good job, though, in a rolethat is not easy to pull off and achieve a believable balance.Overall I wouldn't give this more than about 4 or 5 points.Next time someone tries this I really hope they can give us somethingworth watching. This is a truly worthwhile script that can be donebetter, perhaps even better than the original. I'd like to see that.

Matt Pais 2012-05-19 12:37:51

A battle between liberals and conservatives in which each looks like a fool unable to meet the other halfway, until a gruesome, deadly finale feebly asks, 'Why can't we all get along?'

badfaulkner 2012-05-19 03:37:32

Not believable

"Straw Dogs" (1971, the original) is one of the most disturbing moviesI've ever seen. Having seen it many times before watching the remake, Iknew I would be hard to please. The biggest obstacle for me, havingseen the original and also being a white Southern male, was theunbelievability and implausibility of the small town henchmen. Simplyput, even the drinkingest church goers among us do not "show theirbehinds" in public the way these buffoons did in the movie. They do notbreak bottles in the parking lot of the high school football gamestheir very own mamas, pastors, and former coaches attend. They don't sobrazenly break hunting regulations. They are not so "lost" in theirglory years they would follow their coach into vigilante justice. Theyjust wouldn't, folks. There are just as many bad guys in the South asanywhere else but they don't behave badly in the public of small townDixie. With only a few changes in the script, the setting andcharacters could've remained the same and would've been considerablymore believable. Forget the Southern stereotypes of football heroes andcoaches and make them all blood relatives like the original "StrawDogs" and I'd be hard-pressed to say white Southern males wouldn't rapeand invade a house with no hesitation. But by playing to thestereotypes (and perhaps without even getting a feel for a realSouthern community beforehand), the director fails to produce arealistic menace with at least the Southern demographic of hisaudience. The original movie "works" mainly because the henchmen feelforeign and scary. The remake fails because its counterparts don't ringtrue.

Stan Hall 2012-05-17 17:38:54

Lurie's "Straw Dogs" argues we are products of our environment and learn to survive by embracing the attitudes and values around us, even when they contradict our own instincts.

Bill Gibron 2012-05-17 10:47:25

one confused slice of pseudo-schlock

seanhimdb 2012-05-16 06:47:19

What was shocking in 1971 becomes dull in 2011

The reviews here fall into 2 groups: those who've seen the original1971 version, and those who haven't. The first group review bycomparison with what was a shockingly controversial and influentialfilm in its day.But the second group saw the movie without preconceptions, and I'minterested to see they mostly found it dull, boring, slow, pointlessand generally unsatisfactory, despite a decent cast and smoothproduction.So, what was shocking in 1971 is boring to today's audiences? That maybe the most shocking thing about this remake. I watched both versionsback-to-back to find out for myself, and yes, the original is a gooddeal more daring (for its time), the retread pulls its punches whileotherwise doing a decent job of relocating and updating withoutchanging the story.One other point I notice: the reviewers who know about the location -the US Southern Heartland - are the ones most critical of the way thelocals are portrayed.In this I must say the remake more than mirrors the original: Knowingrural England of the 1970s, I found all the local characters veryunrealistic and badly acted. I know the original movie is highlyacclaimed, but really, the local English actors all came across asbit-players from the old Ealing comedies, middle class city dwellingamateur dramatics types playing at being working class country folk,with dialog and mannerisms that only a foreign director could fail todetect as phony.So, a polished but flawed remake of an unpolished, also flawed, butcontroversial original. 7/10 for effort.

Andrew Simpson 2012-05-15 16:31:27

The hunting scenes and the brutal farm siege are solidly gripping, and Lurie doesn't shy away from David embracing his inner savage.

James Berardinelli 2012-05-12 08:59:45

Lurie, like Peckinpah, is fascinated by the idea that the seemingly mild, non-confrontational pacifist may be the villain in all of this.

James Kendrick 2012-05-11 22:02:11

essentially turns the film into exactly the kind of primitive masculine revenge tale that the original's detractors mistook it for

Thomas Leupp 2012-05-07 15:45:07

A terminal bore.

Jim Judy 2012-05-06 22:14:20

While it might not be a perfect film and certainly not an original one or for all audiences, it clearly works for what it's aiming to do and be.(Parental Movie Review also available)