This remake of Sam Peckinpah's notorious 1971 thriller Straw Dogs transports the action from rural England to a backwater town in Mississippi, but sticks closely to the basic plot structure of the original, even emulating much of the dialogue. Even so, director Rod Lurie's retelling fails to come anywhere close to Peckinpah's film in terms of simmering tension, shocking rawness and unflinching brutality.The ways that this new film differs from the original might be small, but they have a huge negative impact on the film as a whole. Whereas both Dustin Hoffman and Del Henney in Peckinpah's film felt completely authentic, the two male leads in Lurie's remake-James Marsden and Alexander Skarsgård-are typical Hollywood hunks, clearly cast for their dashing good looks and bulging pecs. In contrast, the one character that is supposed to ooze sex appeal, David's wife Amy, is played by Kate Bosworth, who is nowhere near as hot as Susan George. And where the original film caused much controversy due to its graphic rape scene and savage violence, this one fails to raise eyebrows, the sexual assault wimping out on the nudity, the killings no more explicit than its forty year old predecessor.Plausibility is stretched to breaking point when Tom Heddon, played by James Woods, deliberately shoots the sheriff (as opposed to the accidental shooting in the original) and the good 'ol boys use their truck to break into the house (the wreck being rather incriminating evidence, methinks!).3.5/10, rounded down to 3 for insulting the viewer's intelligence by explaining the enigmatic title, as though the curious are unable to Google the meaning themselves.

L.A. screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both. Straw Dogs is your typical remake from Hollywood with great actors portraying roles that someone else did decades ago and although it's not a bad remake it still wasn't needed and it has some big plot holes for example his wife got raped and she didn't say anything to the police or her husband? Why? I don't know honestly then when he kills Charlie she is shocked but some minutes ago she murdered with a shotgun the 2nd guy who raped her because i'm pretty sure Charlie raped her too it's just that the scene was weird she kissed him, she pushed and she could easily escape from him when he took her underwear off why didn't she do it? Anyways as far as acting goes everyone was fine although Dominic Purcell was the best i was surprised to see Willa Holland in a role you know Thea Queen from Arrow? Anyways the remake of Straw Dogs is not exactly awful but it could be better.

!!!!! SUGGESTIVE SPOILERS !!!!! The original movie has the dubious label of being a "Classic Movie" . To be honest much of its reputation is down to a notorious rape scene . That said Peckinpah was a genuine auteur who grabbed Hollywood by the throat , stuck a gun in its mouth and blew its head off . Hollywood was never the same again and it's interesting seeing some of his style recreated to a degree via Scorsese , Verhoeven , DePalma and Tarantino , directors who don't do things by half when a scene calls for literal bloody violence . Regardless of that STRAW DOGS isn't a great movie , having a rather confused story where a middle class non violent man and his slutty wife have to make a stand when their lives are threatened . If you liked the Peckinpah style you would have no doubt liked STRAW DOGS flaws and all but it seems totally pointless continuing the recent Hollywood trend and remaking horror films from the 1970S and 80s especially when absolutely nothing new is brought to the table and I had this down as yet another production line number with the setting moved from Cornwall England to the American Deep South . Add to this looking through his resume on this site remake director Rod Laurie is obviously a journeyman type of film maker and nothing he's directed ring any bells with me I really must do the lottery sometime because everything I predicated was indeed correct and almost everything wrong with the original is recreated here with added dog poo . The couple of Amy and David was highly unlikely in the 1971 due to the casting but here it's even more unconvincing . David is a Hollywood screenwriter and one of the things that's always appealed to me on an abstract level is that Beverly Hills must be a great place to meet really hot chicks . Is trailer trash Amy really the best David could pull ? I know a lot of men have a fetish for plain faced , sexually easy , peroxide blonds but there's a large difference between having sex with one and getting married to one .There's also a very mall detail in that his screen writing project lacks credibility . Hollywood is doing a big budget war film featuring Stalingrad as the backdrop ! Yeah sure they are . When something does ring true like the Deep South having more than its fair share of bible bashing rednecks everything is so over done as to lapse in to parody . It also begs the question why would anyone want to return there if they can live in Beverly Hills ? "Okay Theo is there anything about this remake that improves on the original" Yes it gives an explanation why the film is called STRAW DOGS and the anal rape scene is slightly less distasteful than what we got in the original . Oh what a short paragraph I've just written

As only ever seeing parts of the original, with this remake, I'm pretty sure I'd still enjoy this versions better. Remakes tend to be livelier than originals. Here there's a forty year stretch. Marsden in one of his best roles (an actor who by now really deserves recognition) and his girlfriend (Kate Bosworth) really sexing it up here, move out to the country, where Bosworth was once a resident. Screenwriter, Marsden, has come out here to get some peace and quiet to work on his writing. When a group of townsfolk laborers, led by a jealous ex boyfriend of Bosworth's, come out to build a barnhouse, so begins an unnerving game to test one's patience, the main operative being Marsden, where these tradesmen show some uncanny behaviour and unnerving traits. If familiar with the premise of the original, we're treading the exact same waters, where we really get good performances out of the cast, notably Alexander Skarsgard, as the grudging ex, intent on seeing outsider, Marsden break, where they're main objective is to eventually drive em' out. But what's great about this Straw Dogs, as again I haven't seen most of the original, was a subplot in the third act, which leads to an ending on a path you don't expect it to go, involving an accidental murder, with now a much avenging townsfolk, where an almost intensely suffocating finale ensues. As for violence, it's sparse, only used with necessary, here one visual standout, a squirming, bone breaking moment, I guess to pun it up. I found the movie, most entertainingly rewarding, all through, something to talk about, with an ending I didn't expect, as I did a version of the song Breathless, unsung by Jerry Lee Lewis, here, coming across Marsden's radio. Willa Holland is delicious eye candy, looking appetizing, full cheerleader uniform and all, the apple of an older retarded guy's eye (Dominic Purcell) and she doesn't exactly mind too, where they have an open relationship. An aging James Woods as Holland's father, who really storms with anger when provoked, I didn't recognize at first. I guess we all get old.