Forty years and dozens of torture porn films later, writer/director Rod Lurie remakes Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs with few significant deviations. The 1971 classic was ahead of its time because of its willingness to get nasty; its influence is so widespread that before Lurie even began, he would have a tough time justifying the remake’s existence. Sadly, the skeleton of the original is there and its dark heart is missing. Like Peckinpah, Lurie is not a timid filmmaker. But whereas Peckinpah is ostensibly about violence, Lurie’s remake succeeds only as exploitation. With ham-fisted editing and an unpolished message, Straw Dogs never packs the thought-provoking wallop strives to achieve.
Instead of rural England, our highfalutin couple heads for the Deep South. David Sumner (James Marsden) is a screenwriter. His wife Amy (Kate Bosworth) used to live in a stone house down in Mississippi, and the couple heads there so David can get some writing done. Amy’s ex-squeeze Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård) is in charge of a roofing the house, and along with slack-jawed accomplices, his subtle intimidation of the couple soon turns to harassment.
When David joins Charlie and the gang on a hunting trip, they use his absence as an opportunity to assault Amy. Unbeknownst to David, the rape adds a sinister context to his brutal showdown with a gang led by Charlie and the town hothead (James Woods). Lacking any traditional weapons, David unsubtly resorts to hot oil and a fucking bear trap.
Lurie knows his way around suspenseful battles of will. The Last Castle and The Contender are thrillers that transcend their subject through top-notch acting and careful attention to inexorable plot developments. In Straw Dogs, however, the plot develops through emotions and symbols, not logic. Such a change isn’t necessarily a problem, but Lurie handles the material clumsily. In the early scenes, for example, Charlie has an intimidating level-headed quality that makes him more sinister than when he has a gun. All the careful acting from Skarsgård is undone in the rape scene, where the plot betrays him and Charlie behaves wholly out of character. What he does the during the climax is even more bizarre; the juxtaposition of his rape and David’s hunting trip to little to justify it.
The director is not the only member of this production with big shoes to fill. Dustin Hoffman is memorable in his transformation from a weakling into a madman. It was difficult to accept he acclimate to torture so easily, yet there is the right combination of madness and determination in Hoffman’s acting to make us believe it. Mardsen does not fare so well. The screenplay alludes to his early understanding of flight-or-flight instincts, but Mardsen sounds as if he does not believe his later lines. His early condescension is believable (I sympathized with Charlie at first), and later Mardsen mostly relies on a broken pair of glasses. Bosworth, barring one interesting scene of a vengeful tease, has the thankless victim role. Her performance may stir controversy, yet the film never waivers from its male-driven perspective.
It’s bizarre to think that this movie released forty years ago. I’ve seen it twice now, and having seen the remake, it has undermined the power of the original. When I found flaws with Straw Dogs, I assumed it hadn’t aged well. Now, with few important changes and an easy-to-digest country vs. city conflict, I see how Lurie and Peckinpah have little to say about our base selves. With The Interrupters and Drive releasing this week, there are superb, albeit different films that feature probing insight into the nature of violence. Go see one of them instead of this middling remake.
Previously in Another Movie Guy?:
- 9/16: Movie Review: "The Interrupters."
- 8/31: Movie Review: "The Debt."
- 8/26: Movie Review: "Pianomania."
- 8/26: Movie Review: "Brighton Rock."
- 8/19: Movie Review: "The Names of Love."
- 8/19: Movie Review: "Attack the Block."
- 8/12: Movie Review: "The Guard."
- 8/12: Movie Review: "30 Minutes or Less."
- 8/5: Movie Review: "The Devil's Double."
- 8/5: "HE SAID" Movie Review: "The Future."
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