jason stives reviews the remake of the Dustin Hoffman classic …
For the first time in writing a review, I have reached a stalemate. As someone who loves and appreciates all kinds of films, I am loyally devoted to the Criterion collection definition of a classic, but I am also an average filmgoer so if it sticks to the wall, I’ll wait to see where it ends up. Rod Lurie’s remake of Straw Dogs, director Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 ultra-violent thriller that starred Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, is a let’s-wait-and-see-where-it-goes film, and I’m still not too sure where it went.
In the original, a mathematician named David Sumner and his wife Amy return to his wife’s native town of Cornwall, England, only to learn that outsiders are handled in the most skeptic manner, and can be greatly hostile if provoked. That plot still stays the same but the setting and the characters’ overall demeanor are altered. Here, Sumner is a struggling Hollywood screenwriter and Amy is a television actress returning to her hometown of Blackwater, Miss., so that David can finish his script in her late father’s house.
Let’s examine the basics: If you are going to remake a film like Straw Dogs, which centers on man’s savage nature, then the Deep South is the ideal setting. What hurts the film, and part of me believes this to be intentional, is the backwoods stereotype that the residents of Blackwater are subjected to be written as. On one end, this is a film of red state versus blue state, made obvious by blunt references to actual money over credit cards being “that stuff poor people use.” The South isn’t exactly a model for common folk living, but it’s also not as blatant. Instead of a Deliverance-like interpretation to Amy’s hometown neighbors — it’s all hunting, trucks, and Friday night high school football. In a way this keeps the simplicity in place that was in the film’s original setting , but in this version, it’s more about moral ideals than the fruition of masculinity.
The casting is a bit questionable even if they seem like obvious fits. James Marsden, for all his leading-man good looks, pulls off a real weasel as David. As a writer trying to finish his script about the Battle of Stalingrad (foreshadowing!) with his Harvard lacrosse shirts and designer trainers, David is pure Hollywood driving around in a ’67 Jaguar and listening to classical music. There is no doubt David is a passive wimp, but Marsden also looks like he could handle tough guys on his own if he wasn’t such a sissy. I mean, this guy did play Cyclops.
The reason Dustin Hoffman worked so well in the original role was because he never showcases any potential threat until his world is brought under siege. The overall thematic nature makes it easy to see where the film will end up in a blaze of glory, but if you never saw the original, you might be hard pressed to not see the gruesome turn the film takes.
For Kate Bosworth, who plays Amy, there is a lot of sizzle but not enough sexuality in her performance. Walking around in short shorts and braless tops, she is appealing and sexual in nature but never intent. Compared to Susan George’s original performance, Bosworth restrains Amy for the sake of not making her intentionally enticing to her ex-Charlie and his gang of creepy yokels. Her acts of flaunting remain only as acts of attention more than confusion. With Peckinpah’s most infamous scene still intact, the threat of danger still arouses her, but it’s subdued in order to make it more liberal to today’s audience.
Out of anyone in the cast, Alexander Skarsgard as Charlie, Amy’s captain of the football team ex is most misplaced. Instead of coming off as a “best this town can offer” scumbag, Charlie looks like a J. Crew model in every scene but acts the least bit deranged about it when it counts. The cast is rounded off with screen great James Woods, in a less than satisfying performance as a potentially hostile former high school football coach with his insanely ridiculous Southern drawl and pension for going off the handle. It almost makes it difficult to take him or his cohorts seriously when he goes into one of his shouting rants.
The film itself keeps all the necessary footsteps of the original’s narrative and at times even lifts some of the original scenes shot for shot. However, the film’s intent is misconstrued in order to make this a taught revenge thriller than a shocking display of violence amongst simple people.
Peckinpah’s original prolonged the the plight of man and the travesty that can bestow a dormant savage mind. Lurie’s remake knows its intent and for better or for worse comes off as a film greatly akin to the modern honest: intentionally blunt and a certified stereotype goldmine. When the finale finally comes it’s greatly anticipated by the audience as an act of logical defense than a sudden call to arms. You cheer on David instead of being disturbed by his violent actions. It still invokes the anger of being called a coward that his wife bestows upon him mid-film, but it never seems startling that it happens.
However, the film did seem to keep you on a sense of alert. Even with knowing the film verbatim and knowing exactly how the final act plays out, I was still engrossed in its presentation, even if it was brief and a little more gratuitous in its execution. We live in a time when we can afford to do that mainly because that is the audience these writers, directors, and actors play to.
Straw Dogs is a very vibrant and blunt film with a sense of menace to it, but it’s not the least bit the most memorable film of its culture and ultimately feels a bit like another dime store remake, only executed a little better than most.
Rating: 5.5 out 10 (Not Bad, Not Great)
