Straw Dogs - Criterion Collection (1971)

One of Sam Peckinpah's most controversial efforts, this film came out at a critical moment in the early 1970s, released in the same month as both Dirty Harry and A Clockwork Orange, causing a furor over film violence. Based on a little-known British novel, the film casts Dustin Hoffman as a bookish American mathematician on sabbatical in rural England, in the town where his young bride (Susan George) grew up. He finds himself forced to defend his home against an assault by local toughs, and discovers a frighteningly feral and vicious side to himself. Though Straw Dogs has a reputation for graphic violence, it actually looks tame by contemporary standards. Instead, the violence is psychological, and the suspense and shocks are induced by the editing--you're more terrified by what you think you see than by what you are actually shown. --Marshall Fine Amazon.com essential video

A Cave Man is a Brave Man!

In this disturbing and violent film, Sam Peckinpah proposes that even
the meekest wimp has the makings of a ruthless killer, and that a flirty
woman, with the right man, could enjoy being raped. This Cave Man-level
theory is acted out by a strong cast in rural Cornwall, England.

The Dustin Hoffman mathematician can't cope with the primitive, rough
men of his sexy wife's hometown. They are lazy, shiftless, conniving,
alcoholic cat-killers, but Peckinpah deep down likes them, just like he
liked the "Wild Bunch." They are handsome, masculine young bucks who
are fond of laughing, singing rowdy folksongs, and hoisting beer mugs.
There's also a nasty, aggressive old drunk who is a bad influence on them.

Dustin channels HIS aggression by making the young vicar and his wife
squirm, playing loud bagpipe battle music (to be repeated later on),
and putting down religion. But with real tough guys, he's hopeless.

When Dustin shelters a deceptively mild but actually quite dangerous
moronic sex offender, the drunken layabouts storm his stone farmhouse
like it was The Alamo. The intellectual professor, through escalating
acts of violent defense, becomes a Cave Man, slapping around his younger
wife when she's being unhelpful. He starts to enjoy his command of the
situation, and his new-found domination of his immature spouse. By the
wrap-up, Dustin knows there is no going back.

Here's a plot-hole: after the nasty old drunk blows off half his own foot,
he is summarily forgotten. Did his younger buddies let him bleed to death?
This is funny: when the hooligans are working for Dustin, they feign
mildness and call him "Sir," then wave him past their truck and almost
get him killed, laughing uproariously. When Dustin finally gets a knife
to the throat of one blackguard, the guy is back to calling him "Sir!"

August 25, 2008

What a bunch of English wankers.

Straw Dogs is a good film, but one that causes me to look down on limeys. Usually, Englishmen are respectable enough. However, I find myself losing respect for them after watching this film. Perhaps Sam Peckinpah was somehow inaccurate in his portrayal of limeys as depraved animals. Even in British director Peter Greenaway's films, notably The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, the characters aren't usually all bad. In Straw Dogs, all the Englishmen are depraved.

Take the Hedden family, for instance. Headed by the old, filthy drunk Tom (Peter Vaughan), they are a bunch of neer-do-wells who spent most of their time crawling about the local pub and screwing their own sister. The daughter in this case is Janice (Sally Thomsett), who is treated as a sex object both by her father and her teenaged brother, Bobby (Len Jones). Hell, even Bobby seems to be portrayed as a scumbag with all his incestuous yearnings and misogynistic attitude toward his own sister.

Then there's the trio of workers hired by David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), to make repairs on his home. One guy, Cawsey (Jim Norton) steals a pair of Amy's (Susan George) knickers for his own amusement. The other two men, Venner (Del Henney) and Scutt (Ken Hutchison), invite David on a hunting trip, only to sneak back to his cottage and rape Amy in a most brutal scene. The first rapist, Venner, isn't entirely without feelings but is still an animalistic scumbag. Scutt is an utter degenerate.

Speaking of perverts, there's also child molester and one-time pedarast Henry Niles (David Warner), who, despite warnings from his older brother John (Peter Arne), continues to go about his perverted ways with Janice. Her eventual fate causes all hell to break lose. The only other main English characters in the film, including Major Scott (T.P. Mckenna) and Reverend Hood (Colin Welland) aren't given much to do besides drink and ogle Amy.

Most of these parties eventually meet to culminate in a half-hour siege on the Sumners' home, where David kills all his attackers in an orgy of bloodletting. Thus, ending a quite decadent movie full of animals and sexual perverts.

Sure, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch featured its share of loathsome degenerates, but Straw Dogs isn't set in America. That's the difference. I feel Straw Dogs would've worked better if Peckinpah did some research on Cornish rednecks in general and not portray them as such monsters in the film. July 14, 2008

Not an animal.

Given the multiple reviews, I really only wish to comment on one aspect of the film, but one that is at it's heart. In the real world there really are people like the town bullies/thugs. Wherever found, their existence needs to be ended. In this film, after multiple points where this termination of existence should have occured, it finally does. D. goes from nothing to warrior. Not an animal in any way. A dangerous, thinking exterminator of evil. A good and honorable function. A necessary function. May 22, 2008

a classic

Sam Peckenpah was many years ahead of the pack and Dustin Hoffman was brilliant in this movie. January 7, 2008

Not Sam's best by any means.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but this film is not for a true Peckinpaw admirer. There was nothing I really could get into. The plot was one that has been filmed more times than you can count. Even good actors couldn't save it for me. It was a far cry from the normal western or late 1800 type film Peckinpaw is noted for. This film was for a generation a lot younger than me. You old timers, get one of Sam's other movies, I liked them all with the Wild Bunch & Cable Houge the best. December 26, 2007

More reviews at Amazon.com ...