Straw Dogs (2011)

The 2011 version of Straw Dogs is based on the 1971 film directed by Sam Peckinpah, which was based on the novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams. Those told the story of a recently married couple, David and Amy, who move into a secluded home in the English country, before being attacked in increasingly violent ways by the people of the surrounding village. This new movie moves the setting to modern Mississippi, which you’d think would be sort of insult to Southerners, but I haven’t heard any complaints yet. That is the only real difference, when compared to Peckinpah’s film. Aside from a few added bits of dialogue, some new use of more dramatic elements, and a slight change in the ending, everything is pretty much exactly the same. The only way I can think of where a remake can be any good, is if something truly new is added. The individual flair of the new people involved should be made evident. There should be some purpose to the material being tread over again.

The direction here is clearly defined and well-planned. James Marsden and Kate Bosworth make a convincing couple. James Woods makes a convincing idiot. There is no point in this movie where I can point and say, "That's no good. This is very bad." Still, the whole thing kept going back and forth for me. On the one hand, you have the scene in which David discovers their pet cat dangling from the light switch in their closet. This scene is, minus one shot from inside the closet, the same as the original, and in this similarity less effective. Then there is the hunting scene with David that is certainly the most powerful scene in either movie because of what is happening to Amy that we can’t see. I actually found that scene in this movie handled better than it was in the original, because it gave us both David and Amy’s point of view simultaneously, which makes the hunting allegory a little clearer. In the original, both sections were shown all the way through back to back, which still easily makes powerful cinema, but I was impressed with the new version as well. That’s really about it as far as improvements. Everything else that occurs is either lesser or the same, neither being a very good outcome. That includes the ending which was, in my opinion, butchered. I also still feel that, in this case, no dramatic music is necessary to tell us how to feel. We should be feeling that way already, but that is technically a minor complaint.

This new Straw Dogs is a pretty good movie, but that’s only because everything about it recalls the original, which was a great movie. The problem I have is the lack of necessity. I sat watching this film, knowing exactly what was going to happen, based on what happened in the original, and that’s what happened. For people who have never seen Peckinpah's classic, and wouldn’t watch it because it’s a whole thirty years old, will probably enjoy this movie more than I did because they have nothing to compare it to. I can only recommend it to them.

7/10