Rating: 
Summary: Loved it.
Review: All you reviewers crying "misogynist" need to chill out. Don't forget that the first rapist had a previous intimate relationship with Amy. Still a rape? Absolutely! Does that explain a bit about her reaction? Most certainly it does. Peckinpah was not trying to bend his audience's morality in the direction of sexual violence. I really don't think so. This film is about an introverted, unassertive wussy who is married to an extroverted, smoking hot young woman. Throw in some cultural displacement and some local jerkwads who want a piece of said young woman and you've got acres of room for character development.
The naysayers themselves have proven with thier lengthy reviews that this film is important. They have obviously given quite a bit of thought to this work.
Rating: 
Summary: Violence without redemption
Review: Call me old fashioned but I believe when violence is used in a movie it should be done with integrity as a vehicle for expressing something greater than itself and not merely for its own sake. Kubrick succeeded brilliantly in doing this in a Clockwork Orange wherein the movies violence is used reflectively as an incisive critique on the ineffectiveness of criminal law control methods. No such redeeming qualities are to be found in Straw Dogs and even the fine performance given here by master duffus Dustin Hoffman is but frugal conpensation for the insipid violent innuedo that is this film. Hoffman plays an American mathmatics prodigy who has recently moved to a small Northern English village to share a house with his nubile young companion. He hires local men to do some restorations on the house, one of whom proclaims to have had previous carnal relations with his employers mistress. Tensions arise, beer is split, guns come out of the closet (and a dead cat too- don't ask), testostorone needs an outlet and by the end all bloody hell breaks loose. We are given next to no information about our protagonists past or reasons for leaving the States and none whatsoever about his girlfriend. Their relationship seems totally arbitrary; he the high brow professor, she a bubble gum munching dilettante they are diametrical opposites with nothing shared in common save the mutal need for sex. It's a gross missreckonig of the filmaker to blithely assume the viewer should be expected to care about such scantily developed characters. Why three stars then? Peckinhams depiction of the repressed English characters "stiff upper lip" demeanour is bang on and worth some merit. Likewise he succeeds brilliantly in exposing the clash between two vastly different cultures. In terms of emotional impact this film will leave the viewer exhausted by it's end.Usually thats tantamount to a having a satisfactory movie going experience here it merely leaves the viewer feeling he's been swindled out of his emotions and asking by the films end "What was the whole point?"
Rating:
Summary: Complex Peckinpah Film
Review: Despite it's reputation for being gratuitously violent, "Straw Dogs" isn't really. The film, until it's climax, forbodes violence which in many ways is more chilling than the act of violence itself. The film concerns itself with a pacifist mathematician, David Sumner(Dustin Hoffman) who moves with his youngish British wife, Amy(Susan George)to the Cornish village from where Amy was reared. Sumner is met with immediate resentment by a segment of the town's populace particularly from a group of laborers who Sumner has hired to fix up his cottage. In the meantime, it is apparent that the marriage between the Sumner's is somewhat rocky and not without tension of it's own. This lethal mix has all the earmarks of a combustible explosion and does it ever. The more popular reading of this film is that when the most passive of men are confronted with a violation against themselves or their property they will react in kind to protect themselves. However, on the film's commentary track, film scholar Stephen Prince has a different interpretation for Sumner's behaviour. This is one of the better scholastic commentarys I've heard so anybody who has already seen "Straw Dogs" would be advised to play the DVD with it on. As for the performances, Hoffman is excellent as Sumner but the real revelation here is Susan George as the woman-child Amy. Prince in his commentary picks up on the complexity of George's performance that I had not picked up on in my initial viewings of this film. The Criterion package also includes a documentary about Peckinpah that's semi-interesting but contains little or no documentary footage.
Rating:
Summary: Peckinpahs masterpiece
Review: Forget THE WILD BUNCH, personally I found STRAW DOGS to be the crowning achievement of Sam Peckinpah's career. An American mathematician (Dustin Hoffman) and his sexy British wife Susan George are tired of the violence of the US so move to the wife's home town in England. What seems to be an idyllic new beginning is shattered when they find themselves harrassed by several local hooligans. Watching STRAW DOGS is like being subjected to chinese water torture, Peckinpah builds the tension slowly and with such expertise that though everybody knows what is going to happen to the couple it's a matter of WHEN. The violence is not glamorised, nor as graphic as the likes of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. I'm not a huge geek or anything, but I will say that this is the type of movie intellectuals pee their pants over and debate over tiny cups of espresso in arty-farty cafes. As more of a beer and meatball sub kinda guy I'll spare you the varisty style nonsense and say that STRAW DOGS is a definite must-see, with Hoffman giving one of his best performances (which is REALLY saying something considering the likes of LENNY, PAPILLON etc etc). Peckinpah has never been darker (or better).
Rating: 
Summary: HORRIBLE!!!
Review: I agree with another reviewer in that you'll either love this or hate it. But I think most people will hate it. (Note: I have nothing against violence in films, and I liked the Kill Bill movies.) The main problem here is that almost every character in this film is utterly unlikable, and terrible things happen to the two characters who are likeable. But even that wouldn't be so bad, if the film had a message. Dustin Hoffman's character is a whiney, wimpy, and mean spirited person who, when he finally decides to act, he does so for all of the wrong reasons & defends the wrong person. I end up hating him MORE than the bad guys.
I rank this as the most unwatchable movie I have ever seen, even below "Short Cuts".
However, if you liked "Short Cuts", you'd probably like this, and vice versa.
Rating:
Summary: Too drawn out, but I can see why it's a classic.
Review: I know that, for it's time, this was one shocking movie.And I dont judge by todays standards (Not that there are many left..).
I think it's so annoying that Hoffman's character is such a pussy, and even after so much has been done to push him, he still tries to keep his cool! His role blank and underplayed... but then again, isn't that you end up screaming at the T.V. screen for him to do something about the lynch mob?!!! Good play. On the whole, it's not that bad, and I prefer Older movies to anything that's come out since the 90's. [...] It's like he only had to give her a good talking to to get her consent.
Rating:
Summary: Gripping but not good for British Tourism
Review: I really liked this movie. It is really well done and the "R" scene is disturbing at best. The "R" scene was confusing, and I think it may have echoed the confused times of that era. I am sure this is not a favorite of feminists or many people for this scene. Hoffman as the nerd gone wild really works and the violence is delicious. Truly a work of art. Susan George was hot with a capital H. A young David Warner as the gentle giant was good also. Very much in the vein of "A Clockwork Orange" and other violent-pushed to the edge movies of that time. The only thing missing was Oliver Reed, he would have done well as one of the creepy locals. Great directing and location. I recommend this without reserve. So much for my English vacation, I may skip it this time round.
Rating: 
Summary: Peckinpah's psychological character study
Review: I remember hearing Charlton Heston once remark about Sam Peckinpah that the man had a great career and vision but then sadly "started blowing off heads." Heston may be right in his analysis of Peckinpah's dedication to dramatic violence, as one need look no further than the closing sequences of the seminal "Wild Bunch" to see a death toll of truly shocking proportions. This director's proclivity for bloody violence, usually shown in slow motion to ratchet up the effect, doesn't find as much expression in the 1971 psychological thriller "Straw Dogs." There are a few nasty encounters with a shotgun peppered throughout the final twenty or thirty minutes of this atmospheric picture, but nary a head leaves its shoulders here. Starring Dustin Hoffman, a few years after his stint in "The Graduate," and a fresh-faced Susan George, "Straw Dogs" spends more time setting up a pervasive sense of doom than concerning itself with a huge body count. Actually, this movie's restraint is surprising for a Peckinpah picture. Then again, I haven't seen a lot of Sammy's films, so perhaps this movie falls into a period when the director felt a need for moderation. David Sumner (Hoffman) and his British wife Amy (George) decide to rent a cottage in England while David works on writing a book. The village the two decide to live in has intimate connections with Amy Sumner, who lived there before meeting and marrying the bookish David. A gang of local thugs, who the Sumners hire to repair the roof of the cottage's barn, well remembers Amy. One of the guys actually had a relationship with this mouthy woman, a link that bodes ill for the amiable but wimpy David. Even worse, the goons have the support of the primary troublemaker in town, a man who even the local constable tiptoes around. The Brits resent David's slightly arrogant manner, his nerdy appearance, and the fact that he goes home with one of their own every night. Disrespect for David takes mild forms at first, usually in the form of funny looks or comments muttered under the breath, but soon the tension between the men and the Sumners escalates into the murder of a pet cat and intimidation on the road leading into the village. David rationalizes away the threats by stating that the problem will simply "go away" if he ignores it. His wife, who seems to know more about how things work in town, urges David to confront the local men. The tension becomes palpable as Sumner must deal not only with the hostility of the local populace but with his wife's strident calls for action as well. It soon gets to the point where Amy questions David's manhood over his meek manners and sycophantic behavior. Things go from bad to worse when Amy's former boyfriend, who sees David's simpering personality as a sign of weakness, decides to reassert his claim to Amy. In a scene that led to a ban on the film in Great Britain for three decades, the gang lures David away from the house so Amy's former beau can pay her a visit. The subsequent scenes are tough to watch, not necessarily because of their brutality but due to Amy's response to part of the proceedings. Not until another goon steps in does Amy show great resistance to what has happened, leading a viewer to believe that David's wife actually encouraged this sleazy rendezvous. Peckinpah seems to want us to think so, since Amy casts aspersions on David's manhood immediately before this incident. Surprisingly, Amy's misfortune is not the final straw that breaks the dog's back. Instead, a local criminal accidentally kills a local girl affiliated with the same village dregs making David's life miserable. Subsequent events find David providing sanctuary for this criminal as the thugs lay siege to the Sumner cottage. The result: a meek, educated man regresses into an animal capable of incredible violence. "Straw Dogs" moves at a glacial pace as Peckinpah builds tension through the encounters between the Sumners and the locals. The performances are generally good, with Hoffman standing out as the harassed mathematician who wants to leave well enough alone and finish his work. David Warner, a personal favorite, does a good job as the mentally challenged criminal Henry Niles. Unfortunately, Warner doesn't appear onscreen as much as I would have liked. The thugs are, well, thugs. Susan George, on the other hand, grates as Amy Sumner. I hated her character, a woman who is quick to push David into confrontation, calls into question his manhood when he resists her efforts, and then essentially stands back in the end by letting him face the goons all by himself. Amy's reacquaintance with her former boyfriend creates a sense of ambiguity on the part of the viewer towards Amy Sumner: on one level, you hate her for "enjoying" the crime, but on the other hand you feel for her when things go further than she anticipated. But you feel sorry only to a point, and perhaps that is what Peckinpah intended. I cannot help but think this director created the Amy character in order to express a deep-seated misogyny. Overall, I liked "Straw Dogs," but I wouldn't watch it again soon. I unfortunately watched the Anchor Bay DVD version, but a Criterion disc has since emerged sporting lots of extras that might shine a spotlight or two on the inner workings of the film. If you want to watch this picture, you should probably get that disc. Obviously, there won't be a Peckinpah commentary on the DVD (he's been dead for years), but Criterion does a good job with its releases. For me, I think I'll stick to "The Wild Bunch" and "The Getaway" in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Another amazing masculine character study by Peckinpah.
Review: It's not at all hard to see the connection between Peckinpah's two greatest movies: Straw Dogs and The Wild Bunch. Both are studies of what it means to be a man, a look at the masculine and sometimes violent male nature. Basically, Straw Dogs is about an extremely timid American intellectual who decides to escape the Vietnam-fueled violence of the USA by moving into the small English town where his wife was raised. However, the man soon realizes that violence is pretty much omnipresent, when the men he hires to fix up his new home begin pushing him and his wife around. I won't give away the ending, but if you know Peckinpah you can probably guess. of course, most people will probably want to see the movie for its infamous rape scene (which got the film banned in the UK, where it was filmed). Not only is the rape graphic, but the victim actually appears to enjoy it; at least at first. Here I must disagree with the lengthy rant of a prior reviewer when I say that the rape scene is not simply an exercise in mysoginy, but rather helps to show just how immasculinated the main character has become. Throughout the first half of the movie we see his wife slowly flirting with the contractors (at one point even letting them see her topless). This suggests quite obviously that she has become so disgruntled with her husbands lack of backbone that she is actively seducing the very masculine contractors, and the fact that she enjoys the rape is simply the logical extreme of her desire to have a truly "manly" partner. Of course, those who've seen the movie know that eventually she's punished for her covetry of man's aggressive nature. Overall, I highly recommend this movie. In fact, I'd suggest you get it ASAP, since the Criterion version has been out of print for months now and won't likely be available for much longer. You need a strong stomach to watch it, certainly, and the pace is very deliberate, but those who have patience and put effort into understanding the meaning of the film will be very well rewarded.
Rating:
Summary: None of you are getting it...
Review: Reading the reviews of this film, it is obvious that, hate it or love it, people just do not get it. They buy into the simplistic story of a pacifist pushed to the limit by thugs forcing themselves on his home and wife. In other words, through a violent rite of passage he becomes a real man. Now, some people hate the film for this, others applaud it. But it's just wrong, folks. The problem, I believe, is that this film has been around for thirty years and has been so thoroughly misunderstood for that time that people go into viewing it with the preconceived notion of the story outlined above, and, all due respect to Sam Peckinpah, if you aren't paying close attention to the nuances you will come out of it with the same idea. But, as I said a moment ago, this is not the story, and the nuances are what make this film brilliant, not the "rape good, feminist bad, so long as the nerd wins" story that does not exist.
David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) is the bad guy of this film. He is egotistical, overly-intellectual, condescending, rude, and emotionally cold to all of humanity and above all his wife. Not only that, but he is a pathologically repressed time bomb, refusing to acknowledge his considerable flaws until they explode at the end of the film (the film is in fact a nightmare vision of such a pathological personality on the brink of collapse).
Amy, his long-suffering wife, is mostly interpreted as Peckinpah's misogynist fantasy of a sex kitten who asks to be raped and enjoys it, while behaving as a bitch towards her nebbish husband. This is wrong, and I don't know what film people have been watching 'cause I do not see that at all. Amy's seemingly petty digs at David (changing his equations, defacing his chalkboard, etc.) are all preceded by some meanness on his part, such as abusing her cat or cutting her down intellectually at every opportunity ("Hey, you're not so dumb," and "I love you, Amy, but I want you to leave me alone"). The film centers on her increasing suffering at being around an emotionally distant and cold husband and the local hooligans.
Which brings me to the most misunderstood part: the rape. She does not ask for this rape, as many think. She does not flirt with the workmen; when she sees them leering at her torn stockings she reacts with disgust and anger; even her brief flashing is hardly inviting...her look is one of cold anger, not enticing sexuality. For the majority of the rape she is clearly not enjoying it...if you watch the montage carefully, it not only highlights her emotional suffering above all but also her association of her husband with her rapist, further underscoring the alienation between them, the similarities between David and the surface "villains," and her psychological torment. The brief sexual response she offers is ambiguous, I admit, but given its context it is a perplexing reaction, sort of the result of her anguish, rather than an indicator that she was digging what was happening.
Finally we have the end, what so many people see as David's "rite of passage" to manhood by beating up the gang of thugs. He is still in a corner here; his grand moral principle of taking responsibility for Henry Niles is undercut when he cannot give any reason for such a responsibility; and watch the camera angle when he proclaims that he will not allow violence against the house: it is from an extremely high, steep angle, visually undermining his moral declaration. This is because it is an empty statement; he identifies with the strongly-built, "solid" house and does not want it breached because, in his mind, it is his own psyche under attack. He has done so well at shielding himself from the world, distancing himself from all humanity (that is why they left the States) that he will use any means necessary to keep intruders out.
In the end, of course, the house is violated, his wife is finally completely alienated (note how, when she tries to aid the intruders, he treats her in the same brutal manner that Charlie, the rapist, did), and the world he knew has been destroyed. This is actually an extremely meloncholy and hopeless film; neither David nor Amy can hope to go back to their old lives. David's abandoning of her to drive Niles back is indictive of this, and on the car ride he admits he is lost himself.
I hope this is helpful in untangling, as Danny DeVito in "Death to Smoochy" would call it, "this web of sh*t." The movie does not glorify violence; rather, it shows it as the horrific result of one man's emotional detachment and pathological repression of every difficulty in his life. It is a tragedy.
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