Rating: 
Summary: Straw Dogs
Review: Sam Peckinpah's controversial film, "Straw Dogs" is a brilliant psychological insight into one's will against violence and potential need for it.
Dustin Hoffman is, as usual, compelling as David Sumners, meek mathematician, who just got married to his beautiful young bride. They are moving to her house in rural England where a group of men are working on her garage. However, they begin to harass her and David, increasingly intensifying their efforts as they realize that David will do nothing about it. However, David cannot take much more, and is finding it harder and harder to control his primal emotions that we all have. What Peckinpah is asking is, is violence a necessity in one's life? Is violence essential to deal with the external conflicts brought on by others? In this case, yes. Violence can only be answered by violence in David's scenario.
While not for the easily disturbed or squeamish, "Straw Dogs" is a film any serious moviegoer should see and praise for it's never lessening vitality and brilliance.
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Summary: Once Upon A Time in The West Country - WARNING: plot spoiler
Review: Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs is set in deepest darkest Cornwall among a collection of yokels and idiots that would give the inbreds from Deliverence a run for their money the half witted sexual deviant stakes. Leaving aside obvious grievances that the Cornwall Tourist Board will have with the film, what lies beneath the surface of this slick and stylish Western-by-the-sea ia a far more intriguing, puzzling and reasonably disturbing proposition. Taking residence in the quiet, backwoods (surely backwards?) english county with his english wife, Amy (Susan George), mathematician David Summer (Dustin Hoffman) is hoping the peaceful rural surroundings will help him finish a theory he is working on. Only problem, this is Amy's birth place, and the couple are soon stirring the attentions of the locals, particularly Amy's ex-boyfriend. And the attentions are not exactly welcome.
Peckinpah's odyssey of masculine enlightenment is troubling in a number of ways. There, is of course, the now infamous rape scene, itself considered too daring by UK censors for the best part of twenty years due to its "she likes it really" philosophy. This may grab all the headlines, but the real trouble here is with the issues this, and the later siege at the cottage, present to the audience.
Straw Dogs is essentially a film about the empowering effect of affirmative of affirmative action, of violence. In its exploration of primal urges and instinct it probably shares more in common with a film such as Fight Club than the 'Rape' films of its era, such as Clockwork Orange, with which it is constantly and unfairly bracketed. Peckinpah's film is a much darker and more intriguing piece than Kubrick's modern morality fable, but intrigue does not always guarantee satisfaction. He is grappling with a serious and sensitive idea here, and he has to applauded for his bravery in doing so, although Peckinpah was never one to shy away from 'difficult' issues. But for all his intentions (good or otherwise) it is maybe this gung-ho, no holds barred balls in hand attitude that is the films flaw. The final scene, in which David, who has for the majority of the film been avoiding any kind of conversation, much to the annoyance of Amy, dispatches the various locals who are attempting to break into his house in a variety of gruesome ways, is probably the most troubling. As he drives away from the scene, David allows himself a self-satisfied smile. He has become empowered, more of a 'man'. This allied, to the rape scenes "she likes a bit of rough" sentiments seem to create a rather simplistic and quite ugly moral philosophy. Amy is raped by her ex, who to her is the symbol of the rugged primal male psyche which she has for too long been deprived of from David. Men should be men and anyway thats how women want them to be anyway, regardless of whatever deeper implications others may place on the film, seems really to be its message.
The blame for this can really only be pointed at one man, Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah is one of America's greatest directors, but his mysoginistic tendencies hamper his handling of a complex matter. The film is fascinating, watchable, interesting and nigh on essential for followers of cinema, but it is hard to watch it without being confused by its intentions, and without taking away a slightly sour taste in the mouth.
It would be difficult to call the film an honourable failure, so an interesting one would be more appropriate. Still, imagine what would have happened if Hitchcock had directed it... I dread to think.
Rating:
Summary: Straw Dogs
Review: This film is without doubt one of the darkest most horrific films in the american mainstream market. While younger filmakers such as Tarantino, etc., go for the violence from the first, Peckinpah builds and builds until all the characters explode in one of the grisliest climaxes in film. Hoffman is perfect. For all you geeks out there who fantasize about actualizng your darkest revenge fantasies, RENT THIS MOVIE. But be warned, do not watch this movie with your girlfriend or wife. The film was slightly censored so some of the cuts are choppy and the ending has some cheaper moments, but all in all a great and very thoughful look into brutality.
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Summary: DUSTIN RULES!!!!
Review: this movie is hot! you must watch it with your full attention from beginning to end and you will be blown out of your seat and will doo doo your pants because it is that good. some folks think this is a slow movin movie. those folks are correct, and idiotic.
Rating:
Summary: Peckinpah Was Capable of So Much Better
Review: This movie represents much of the things that made Peckinpah such a conflicted director. The theme of the movie, for me, had nothing to do with the turning of a worm, but was all about Peckinpah's own love for violence as a way of giving the finger to everyone he thought was a lackey or conventional or just not macho enough.
Peckinpah made, in my opinion, one classic movie, The Wild Bunch. There was violence, but this was overshadowed by the development of character and the sadness of age and changing times. Cable Hogue and Ride the High Country are both, in my opinion, very good, and in both Peckinpah showed self-discipline. But Straw Dogs, for me, is just violence to make a point that somewhere in Peckinpah's psyche it seemed important to make. He liked to push the envelope, as the cliche has it, and if people got a few paper cuts on their tongues, so much the better.
The casting also is a problem for me. Dustin Hoffman might be a very good actor, but he was sure lucky that he made The Graduate and Midnight Cowboy. He hit the moment in the late Sixties when pretty-boy heros were fast going out of fashion and the anti-hero was coming in. I'm convinced that if Hoffman had emerged in the Fifties or the Eighties, he would have remained an outstanding but unsung character actor. For me, it is unbelievable that Susan George would ever have considered him mating material. When this movie was made, Hoffman was big stuff in Hollywood and he and Peckinpah were probably delighted to get each other.
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Summary: QUINTESSENTIAL PECKINPAH!!!
Review: This picture displays both the best of Sam Peckinpah and the worst!If there is any movie I love and hate in equal measure, this is it! One one hand, Peckinpah shines brighter than he ever had or would again by showing the neceseity of violence! For three-quarters of the picture everything is quiet, painfully quiet. We watch docile Dustin Hoffman allow a bunch of bullying ruffians, harrass him, murder his cat and rape his wife. And then in the film's final quarter, Hoffman fights back and defends his home in an absolutely intoxicating, adrenaline rush of violence the likes of which has never been seen before or since. This finale is made all the more effective by the dead quiet that has presided over most of the picture. What I disliked about this picture, was it's message about women provided by the horribly sexist Peckinpah. Like "The Wild Bunch", Peckinpah seems to say that women are the downfall of the male gender. The married mathemetician Hoffman plays is quiet and spineless, unable to stand up for himself because his wife has symbolically castrated him. Only, at the end, when Hoffman leaves his wife and defends his property has he symbolically gotten his balls back. I cannot forgive Peckinpah for his apparent hatred towards women, but as a statement about repressed violence, I must give this movie five stars because I cannot deny the brilliance of it!
Rating:
Summary: interesting but violent and controversial
Review: This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.
Sam Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" generated much controversey when it was released due to the gratuitious violence and a rape scene and got an X rating in England based on this. At one time, it was banned because it appears that the woman being raped is actually enjoyng being raped.
The film is about a couple on vacation in the Cornwall region of England. They are continually harassed by the people of the town. When the 'village idiot' accidentaly kills a woman the couple tries to protect him from a lynch mob.
The film has many scenes that will be unsettling to some viewers, but with Dustin Hoffman in the lead role, it will appeal to those interested in his films. It contains some good acting and beautiful scenery of the Cornish countryside.
The DVD is a two disc set with many special features.
Disc one contains the film with optional audio commentary by scholar, Stephen Prince and an optional isolated music and sound effects track.
Disc two contains theatrical trailers and TV spots, a documentary about the director titled: "Sam Peckinpah: Man of Iron," Behind the scenes footage, films of Dustin Hoffman on the set, Interviews with producer Daniel Melnick and actress Susan George, and finally transcripts Peckinpah's responses to reviews and letters from film critics and viewers.
This DVD went out of print beginning January 1 2004 but at the time of this review, the price for secondhand copies remains low. The price is bound to go up as out of print Criterion DVD's almost always do.
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