Straw Dogs (2011)
Release Date: September 16th
When I first heard there was a remake of the 1971 film “Straw Dogs,” I had mixed feelings. It seems 80% of the movie trailers I see today are remakes. Did Hollywood run out new ideas and scripts? Anyway, that’s a blog for another day. There are remakes that blow away the originals (i.e. True Grit); I was wondering if Straw Dogs would be one of them.
In this version, an L.A. screenwriter, David (James Marsden), and his actress wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth), move to her hometown of Blackwater Mississippi. Immediately, tension forms between the couple and the locals. Violence and jealousy ensue and people end up dead.
It’s clear the director, Rod Lurie, wanted to build suspense by showing conflicts brewing mainly by the characters actions and expressions. Normally I love when movies do this, but I felt it dragged on forever and not many of the actors could pull off their own conflicts with just a look. The exceptions were Marsden and Alexander Skarsgard, who plays Charlie, Amy’s ex-boyfriend. They were able to take what was given them in the script and turn it into well-acted performances.
Every character in this movie is unlikable. The cheerleader that tries to get the town’s mentally challenged man hurt and likely killed by purposefully coming on to him in public. The wife who knows what happens in this town refuses to tell her husband anything about it. She tells her husband to “act like a man” and be more dominant, especially in front of Charlie. When he refuses, she flaunts herself and body in front of Charlie and his friends. The husband that is focused on his work won’t demand that his wife share with him information on Blackwater’s society. The ex-boyfriend who obsesses about the wife, takes her standing naked in her bedroom window staring at him while he works, as a clear sign she wants him. Later, the wife is raped and never tells her husband, but still wants him to “man up.”
The only likable characters are the mentally-challenged man and the Sheriff. I hoped that the female characters would have been written stronger. I get the premise that in Blackwater the women are only powerful by the chaos they can create using their bodies. The wife had been living in L.A for years and should recognize this. The mentally challenged man’s brother knew what the cheerleader was trying to do, but then leaves him alone at a football game. No one in this movie cared about anyone else but themselves. Well, the Coach (James Woods) did care about his daughter the cheerleader, but even Woods was misused. We’ve all seen his drunk, violent, S.O.B. act and the script didn’t allow for him to give this character more depth.
All this culminates into a bloody battle at the couple’s house. The end of the movie was good, acted well, fast paced, and somewhat believable. This could have been a great remake, especially with the actors involved. I just think between the script and possibly direction, there wasn’t much the actors had to work with. It may have been the script that even limited the director. Straw Dogs was an ‘ok’ movie. Certain parts were great and I may have liked it more if it didn’t seem so drawn out at the beginning. I can even live with the damaged self-loathing women, but the script needed more.
It definitely doesn’t stand as a great remake, but I do recommend it once it is released on DVD, if for nothing other than Marsden’s and Skarsgard’s performances.
When I first heard there was a remake of the 1971 film “Straw Dogs,” I had mixed feelings. It seems 80% of the movie trailers I see today are remakes. Did Hollywood run out new ideas and scripts? Anyway, that’s a blog for another day. There are remakes that blow away the originals (i.e. True Grit); I was wondering if Straw Dogs would be one of them.In this version, an L.A. screenwriter, David (James Marsden), and his actress wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth), move to her hometown of Blackwater Mississippi. Immediately, tension forms between the couple and the locals. Violence and jealousy ensue and people end up dead.
It’s clear the director, Rod Lurie, wanted to build suspense by showing conflicts brewing mainly by the characters actions and expressions. Normally I love when movies do this, but I felt it dragged on forever and not many of the actors could pull off their own conflicts with just a look. The exceptions were Marsden and Alexander Skarsgard, who plays Charlie, Amy’s ex-boyfriend. They were able to take what was given them in the script and turn it into well-acted performances.
Every character in this movie is unlikable. The cheerleader that tries to get the town’s mentally challenged man hurt and likely killed by purposefully coming on to him in public. The wife who knows what happens in this town refuses to tell her husband anything about it. She tells her husband to “act like a man” and be more dominant, especially in front of Charlie. When he refuses, she flaunts herself and body in front of Charlie and his friends. The husband that is focused on his work won’t demand that his wife share with him information on Blackwater’s society. The ex-boyfriend who obsesses about the wife, takes her standing naked in her bedroom window staring at him while he works, as a clear sign she wants him. Later, the wife is raped and never tells her husband, but still wants him to “man up.”
The only likable characters are the mentally-challenged man and the Sheriff. I hoped that the female characters would have been written stronger. I get the premise that in Blackwater the women are only powerful by the chaos they can create using their bodies. The wife had been living in L.A for years and should recognize this. The mentally challenged man’s brother knew what the cheerleader was trying to do, but then leaves him alone at a football game. No one in this movie cared about anyone else but themselves. Well, the Coach (James Woods) did care about his daughter the cheerleader, but even Woods was misused. We’ve all seen his drunk, violent, S.O.B. act and the script didn’t allow for him to give this character more depth.
All this culminates into a bloody battle at the couple’s house. The end of the movie was good, acted well, fast paced, and somewhat believable. This could have been a great remake, especially with the actors involved. I just think between the script and possibly direction, there wasn’t much the actors had to work with. It may have been the script that even limited the director. Straw Dogs was an ‘ok’ movie. Certain parts were great and I may have liked it more if it didn’t seem so drawn out at the beginning. I can even live with the damaged self-loathing women, but the script needed more.
It definitely doesn’t stand as a great remake, but I do recommend it once it is released on DVD, if for nothing other than Marsden’s and Skarsgard’s performances.
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