Directed by:
Sam PeckinpahCinematography:
John CoquillonComposer:
Jerry FieldingCast:
Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughan, T.P. McKenna, David Warner, Ken Hutchison, Del Henney, Jim Norton, Donald Webster, Len Jones, Sally Thomsett (more)Plots(1)
In this thriller, perhaps Sam Peckinpah’s most controversial film, David (Dustin Hoffman), a young American mathematician, moves with his English wife, Amy (Susan George), to the village where she grew up. Their sense of safety unravels as the local men David has hired to repair their house prove more interested in leering at Amy and intimidating David, beginning an agonizing initiation into the iron laws of violent masculinity that govern Peckinpah’s world. Working outside the U.S. for the first time, the filmmaker airlifts the ruthlessness of the western frontier into Cornwall in Straw Dogs, pushing his characters to their breaking points as the men brutalize Amy and David discovers how far he’ll go to protect his home - culminating in a harrowing climax that lays out this cinematic mastermind’s eloquent and bloody vision of humanity. (Criterion)
(more)Reviews (9)
From my perspective, this is the strongest film by Sam Peckinpah. It is an incredibly powerful, unsettling drama dedicated to the phenomenon of violence. Psychologically accurate, credible, absurdly realistic, hurtful, and very bitter... A slowly unfolding story of the confrontation between an intellectually focused college student and uneducated country folk gradually gains momentum and culminates in a shocking massacre. It is a film about different value systems, the inability to compromise, but above all about dark instincts and suppressed aggressiveness that hide within each of us, and if circumstances allow them to manifest, they can cause unimaginable damage. Overall impression: 95%.
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This return to the 1970s in the company of Dustin Hoffman and with Sam Peckinpah’s brilliant direction made me very happy.
Straw Dogs is distinguished by its tense atmosphere, unconventional protagonist and, especially, female sexuality
portrayed in an animal-like and instinctive fashion, which typical of Peckinpah’s works and never matched by anyone
else in mainstream films. I wonder why this didn’t get an Academy Award nomination for editing. Was this film too
spontaneous and sensuous, not textbook-smooth enough for the Academy?
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Toying with the viewers and their mind is the best that a movie can offer. Alfred Hitchcock already knew that, just like a number of directors who follow his example and try to base their movies off it. Straw Dogs is a pretty rough movie. The main plus is the young Dustin Hoffmann, who transforms from a scaredy young man into a right butcher throughout the movie; aka basic human instincts win over reason. And that’s what the entire movie unfolds from. It has its charm, it’s worth watching, but in my opinion, the three stars are just enough for it.
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A clear example that even someone who seems harmless can become a threat to their oppressors under oppressive circumstances. Dustin Hoffman as a mathematics teacher convincingly portrayed the transformation from a pushover to an individual fighting for survival, and Susan George in the role of his wife matched him in acting skill perfectly. This finely crafted suspenseful film, with a touch of exaggeration, could be considered a small showcase of repulsive bully characters. Watching the film caused very depressing feelings in me, which I am not going to torture myself with again. (75%)
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The slow beginning is a shame, this film would deserve the highest score otherwise. The final half hour is brilliant and the depressive aftermaths are really impressive. Straw Dogs is one of the most representative yokels-in-action type of films and, together with Deliverance, is one of the cornerstones of the hixploitation horror subgenre – and that is enough for me to like it.
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