Straw Dogs – Review

David Sumner (James Marsden) is a well to do L.A. film writer who decides to relocate with his wife Amy (Kate Bosworth) to her hometown of Blackwater, Louisiana. Their new home is dilapidated, so they hire hunky contractor Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard), who once dated Amy back in high school. Charlie and his clan of grunts have their own agenda as they test his manhood at every turn realizing his is a preppy guy who is not likely to fight back because it is not in his nature. Amy takes a sweaty, braless, shoeless (?) run on the open road where the redneck crew salivates over her from their truck as they non-verbally plot to do more than check out her assets. David doesn’t blink an eye as Amy voices her concern that she is very uncomfortable about they way she is being eyeballed, and he has the audacity to tell her if she dressed properly they wouldn’t be gawking at her. That callus comment is an omen of things to come as David joins the yokels for an off-season game of deer hunting, a ploy to distract him long enough for the True Blood heartthrob to do his best I Spit on Your Grave imitation and rape her.

Like a lot of women who go through such a traumatic event, Amy stays in silence as she and David go about trying to fit in where they are not wanted. But after the backwood hillbillies get the ax for their lack of work ethic, they are just looking for an excuse to let out their warrior ways and get back at them. That opportunity comes in the form of a sub-plot, one that involves their former football “coach” (James Woods) whose teenage daughter has the hots for the town simpleton Jeremy Niles (Dominic Purcell), who accidentally kills her. David and Amy inadvertently slam their car into Jeremy, and our couple who first starred together in Superman Returns, bring him back to their pad where the not-so even tempered baddies unleash their fury in blood-soaked finale where the city slickers battle back against the cornfed cowards.

This film is all about the dissociation between class in society and how we view each other, as well as one man’s descent from order into destruction. On one hand you have people who have the finer things in life like the Jaguar car, the fancy clothes and a steady income. Then you have the blue collar workers who are trying to make ends meet and are just scraping by. In life, most of us fit in the middle and not at the opposite ends of the spectrum, but the movie shows the ugly side of economics and how we prejudge our fellow citizens. There is quite a bit of truth in how some people live in the past, still holding on to their former glory. “Coach” and his former players are bullies whose prime has passed them by and they are bitter about it. David Sumner is forced to shed his unthick skin and stand up and be a man and protect his own. Although his psyche is as cracked as his once pristine pair of glasses, he steps up to the plate with thinking man tactics when trouble comes shooting at his door.

While James Marsden is no Dustin Hoffman, and Rod Lurie is not in the same league as Sam Peckinpah — this remake of Straw Dogs is a taut thriller that shows that we are responsible for our behavior and the behavior of people around us.

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