L.A. screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both.
The 2011 version of Straw Dogs is a bland, soulless confection, devoid of cultural resonance, and a waste of time for cast, crew and audience alike.
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. The result is a bit of yawn enlivened only by James Woods' delirious bad guy.
This version feels like a potboiler that can’t match the shocks of the original Straw Dogs, partly because it is out of sync with changed times.
Director Rod Lurie keeps the action fast and furious, yet because the characters are so simply drawn the tension just isn’t there.
The plot boils up nicely.
This is a fairly straightforward tale of rednecks versus city folk and it lacks the original’s chaotic carnivalesque undercurrent.
A solid set-up, with its parade of drunken hillbillies, means it simmers steadily and retains a certain clammy power, though it is overlong and some of the 180 degree turns are a bit hard to buy.
A depressing sign of the times.
An intriguing, if flawed, update.
An unnecessary remake – most of them are – but not short of subtlety or excitement.
Uneven but intriguing and much, much better than expected. Uneven but intriguing and much, much better than expected.
It isn't badly made, but what's the point of rebooting Straw Dogs, if the only object is to repackage it, and make it marginally less offensive?
Rather than spinning in his grave, Peckinpah is probably merely rotating.
Rod Lurie brings key aspects to heel but his Straw Dogs is worth a walk around the block. It certainly deserved more than $10m at the US box office.
Ultimately Lurie's film isn't in the same class as Peckinpah's flawed classic, but it's a respectable, respectful and rather good film.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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