Review of Straw Dogs (1971) by Sergio P — 10 May 2008

I'm one who enjoys watching "classic" films. I usually find them enertaining and for the most part understand why they have become influential enough to warrant the "classic" label. Here is one I didn't enjoy.....

[b]Straw Dogs (1971) - 4.4/10[/b].

Director - Sam Peckinpah.

Starring - Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, David Warner, TP McKenna.

Mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) moves to England with his British wife Amy (Susan George) to England to avoid social unrest in the United States created my the Vietnam War. Working on a grant, Sumner believes he has found the perfect locale to do his work. However the locals are not too fond of the Sumner and slowly begin to provoke him. Sumner, an extremely passive man, pretty much lets the townfolks bully him. Relationship issues with his wife further complicate matters. Eventually Sumner is pushed far enough that he has no options but to fight back.

I had a lot of problems with this film. Not with the premise, but with the sloppy execution. The first half of the film, which should have established the characters and specifically the relationship of David and Amy, did very little of that. All we know is that David is extremely passive and doesn't relate to anyone very well. We don't even learn why. There is zero chemistry between Hoffman and George and we wonder how in the heck did they ever get together. It's hard to fault Hoffman, as he's proved time and time again what a wonderful actor he is, so you have to look at the script. As for Susan George? She was truly underwhelming, but I'll give her a pass as well. After spending about an hour not developing these characters, the mood of the film shifts, taking a very dark turn. First the couple's cat is found hanging in a closet. Amy urges David to take action as she suspects the men working on the house are to blame. The passive David can't confront them. So they go hunting which is merely a way of getting David out of the house so the locals can rape Amy. This scene is particularly awkward and off-putting. It was handled so clumsily. The "aftermath" was even more confusing compared to how Amy reacted after the cat incident. The final act is set-up after another awkward scene in which David and Amy go to a local church gathering. Here a local girl is abducted by a mentally challenged man suspected of being the town molester. He winds up at David and Amy's home where David tries to protect him from a crazed mob of men, the same men responsible for raping his wife and killing their cat.

[i]Straw Dogs [/i]supposedly is a statement film about violence. How even the most peaceful of us can be pushed to the edge, resorting to the exact thing we abhor. Okay I admit there is logic to that, but a "statement" alone doesn't make a good film. [i]Deliverance[/i], a film released around this time, was not dissimilar, but it was by far the superior film. Comparisons to Stanley Kubrick's [i]A Clockwork Orange [/i]are also inevitable. Kubrick's film may have been morally bankrupt, but at least you can't deny it's creativity. I may not have agreed with what Kubrick was trying to convey, but I couldn't deny some of that film's power. [i]Straw Dogs, [/i]on the other hand, felt entirely B-rate. It's so-called social statement rendered inneffective due it's poor execution. Honestly if Peckinpah and Hoffman were not attached to this project do you think anyone would distinguish this film from other B-rate films of this era? I think not.