Filmmaker Jean-Luc Goddard once said, “The way to criticize a film is to make another film.” In 1971, when Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs was released during the Christmas holiday season, it shocked audiences and divided them. Based on the novel The Siege at Trencher’s Farm, it starred Dustin Hoffman as a meager intelligent mathematician who has moved to the English countryside with his wife played by Susan George, who was only 21 at the time of the release as Hoffman was in his mid-30s.
They are slowly harassed and bullied by the local handymen who are repairing parts of the property up to a moment where the family cat is killed and hung in the closet. The climax of the movie has them trying to break down the windows and doors to get a local slow-witted man played by David Warner who has accidentally smothered a young woman who is the daughter of one of the local drunks. Hoffman’s character refuses to allow them in and eventually results to his primal instincts as he kills all of them in self-defense. The movie kicked off a batch of movies (Death Wish, Taxi Driver and Rolling Thunder among others) during the 1970s of men getting revenge through violence.
But if you look at the movie without the controversy of the era, it’s a poorly made movie. Peckinpah has never been known for his positive portrayal of women and George’s character comes off as whiny and hysterical to the point Hoffman’s character slaps her a lot. There’s also a rape scene where she initially is okay with it as it’s a former beau but when his friend wants his turn at gunpoint, it turns ugly. I understood what Peckinpah was trying to do with the movie but I didn’t like how he did it. Or it may have not translated well to the late 1990s when I saw it.
No one was calling for a remake of the movie, which some critics consider Peckinpah’s best over The Wild Bunch. But Rod Lurie made an updated version of it in 2011 switching the English countryside for the rural jerkwaters of southern Mississippi. Protagonist David Sumner (James Marsden) is now a well-to-do Hollywood script writer married to Amy (Kate Bosworth), who grew up in the area before she was cast on a since-canceled TV show. Her father has passed away and they’re wanting to repair a garage that was damaged from a recent tropical storm.
David discovers at first he sticks out like a sore thumb and there’s not much Southern Hospitality. However, he’s willing to be nice and courteous to the locals as he understands he’s a guest. But he’s really an outsider. There’s some animosity because Amy is the one who got out and she went and married someone like David, who is a pacifist, drives a Jaquar, and dresses a way the locals don’t like. He finds himself at odds with Charlie Venner (Alexander Skarsgard in a great role) as Amy’s former boyfriend who still carries a torch for her hoping she will come to her senses and return there for good. Skarsgard is perfect for this role. He’s taller than Marsden and quick to show off his chiseled physique, even though his friends have left themselves go.
Wanting to be cordial, David hires Charlie and his friends to repairing a garage, but soon learns they are sloppy and lazy. David tells Amy that they are “straw dogs.” At one time when they were in high school, they were probably student athletes and popular. But that ended and they found themselves useless now as the sacrificial objects from Chinese folklore. And I can see what he’s talking about. I’ve covered high school sports for over a decade. I saw all the former athletes who found themselves in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and even older still holding on to those glory days. They show up at the games and pal around with their old teammates. Some of them even still sit in the student section when they’re in their 20s.
There’s a big reference to the high school football team. James Woods plays the retired football coach Tom Heddon, still just call “Coach” or “Coach Tom” by people. He hangs out in the local bar getting drunk and causing fights. My guess would be the school district still allows him to stand on the sidelines of the games despite that he’s probably intoxicated because they’re afraid of making waves. The whole town seems to be in a state of arrested development. Even though the sheriff John Burke (Laz Alonso) is black, he really has no authority among all the white men who probably call him slurs behind his back. David also discovers that many places don’t take plastic yet. Even though it’s 2011, it’s still hard for some places to take credit and debit cards.
Marsden does a better performance than Hoffman at portraying David as a man who’s doing his best trying not to pick a fight even though everyone is asking for it. Marsdan grew up in Oklahoma, even going to Oklahoma State University. He knows the type of people in the town. Thankfully, Amy is more modern this time rather than the meek childish character George played her. Bosworth gives Amy the sense that she doesn’t want to be there but is forced to be there through some silly traditions. What would people think of her if she didn’t return after her father’s death? David thinks the tranquility of the south will help him write his script better. And while there is a rape scene, Amy isn’t as willing to let Charlie do it.
When the siege finally does happen as David and Amy take the dim-witted man Jeremy Niles (Dominic Purcell) who’s injured to their home, it’s more believable as Charlie and his friends are coerced by Coach Tom to do whatever is necessary. I also feel in Marsden’s performance he was pushed to the point that he isn’t going to back down. He may have played Cyclops in the X-Men movies be he has the mannerism and tone down to initially show that he avoids fights. Movies like this in the 1970s, which also included Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left and the divisive Day of the Woman, aka I Spit on Your Grave, were about showing how vicious “normal people” could be when logical and rational thought leads to revenge.
Nowadays with Stand Your Ground and the Castle Doctrine, David and Amy’s actions would be seen as justifiable. I think what Peckinpah’s version was also trying to convey is how the English saw themselves as more noble than Americans, but in the end, they resort to barbaric tactics during a drunk rage. Lurie’s version is breaking down the myth of “Southern Hospitality.” The people of the community are very critical of David.
The hypocrisy is at the heart of the movie. Charlie and his friend, Norman (Rhys Coiro) rape Amy. However, they are concerned about Jeremy getting too close to Coach Tom’s daughter, Janice (Willa Holland). But it’s because they consider Jeremy to be weak just like they think David is weak. But in the end, David shows them what he’s capable of. Charlie could’ve stopped Norman if he really cared for Amy but he sees her as an object since she’s married to David.
Earlier in the movie, Charlie chides David when he walks out of a sermon because he’s being disrespectful to the congregation as they put on a big show about the upcoming football game. Yet, true Christians don’t sexually assault women. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife. I feel Charlie and his friends are trying their best to keep whatever glory days they had alive and with the support of Coach Tom, who acts like he still has some power, it says a lot of the cult-like mentality that exists in small-town America that is all too common in real life.
Straw Dogs received mixed reviews with film critic Roger Ebert recommending it even though he only gave a two-star review to the 1971 original. However, it was a box-office failure making only $11 million against a $25 million budget. I’m not surprised. This isn’t the type of movie that people want to line up and see or watch pay good money to see again. The movie I think has become more relevant in the last 15-20 years with the political divide between “real America” aka the Bible Belt or Heartland and the city elites.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 