Cheap Straw Dogs (DVD) (Dustin Hoffman, Susan George) (Sam Peckinpah) Price

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Customer Reviews of Straw Dogs

Violence without redemption
Call me old fashioned but I believe when violence is used in a movie it should be done with integrity as a vehicle for expressing something greater than itself and not merely for its own sake. Kubrick succeeded brilliantly in doing this in a Clockwork Orange wherein the movies violence is used reflectively as an incisive critique on the ineffectiveness of criminal law control methods. No such redeeming qualities are to be found in Straw Dogs and even the fine performance given here by master duffus Dustin Hoffman is but frugal conpensation for the insipid violent innuedo that is this film. Hoffman plays an American mathmatics prodigy who has recently moved to a small Northern English village to share a house with his nubile young companion. He hires local men to do some restorations on the house, one of whom proclaims to have had previous carnal relations with his employers mistress. Tensions arise, beer is split, guns come out of the closet (and a dead cat too- don't ask), testostorone needs an outlet and by the end all bloody hell breaks loose. We are given next to no information about our protagonists past or reasons for leaving the States and none whatsoever about his girlfriend. Their relationship seems totally arbitrary; he the high brow professor, she a bubble gum munching dilettante they are diametrical opposites with nothing shared in common save the mutal need for sex. It's a gross missreckonig of the filmaker to blithely assume the viewer should be expected to care about such scantily developed characters. Why three stars then? Peckinhams depiction of the repressed English characters "stiff upper lip" demeanour is bang on and worth some merit. Likewise he succeeds brilliantly in exposing the clash between two vastly different cultures. In terms of emotional impact this film will leave the viewer exhausted by it's end.Usually thats tantamount to a having a satisfactory movie going experience here it merely leaves the viewer feeling he's been swindled out of his emotions and asking by the films end "What was the whole point?"

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One of Peckinpah's Best
People seem to love or hate this movie. I love it. Dustin Hoffman plays professor on "sabbatical" to write a book on astronomy and computers. There is some allusion to his having been driven to his sabbatical (or from his job) because of his refusal to take a stand over some undefined issue at his place of employment. In any case, he retreats to a farmhouse in rural England with his pretty wife, played by Susan George.

When some of the local underemployed thugs start bullying him--(The script and Peckinpah's direction of the actors hits bull's-eye here; having lived in England, I saw the same sort of behavior--punks all over, I guess, have mannerisms of bullying peculiar to their culture.)

The violent climax to this film is--you hate to say it--beautiful. It certainly isn't gorey by today's standards. This, perhaps, is what makes people so uncomfortable about this movie--their own reaction to the violence. Hoffman conveys wonderfully both the fear and the satisfaction his character is experiencing.

At one level, this film exists as a simple tale of revenge. At another level, the movie affirm's Peckinpah's vision of violence as a rite of manhood. Whether this rite is a regrettable one . . . well, that remains arguable, and this ambiguity is part of what makes this such a watchable, and re-watchable, movie.

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HORRIBLE!!!
I agree with another reviewer in that you'll either love this or hate it. But I think most people will hate it. (Note: I have nothing against violence in films, and I liked the Kill Bill movies.) The main problem here is that almost every character in this film is utterly unlikable, and terrible things happen to the two characters who are likeable. But even that wouldn't be so bad, if the film had a message.

Dustin Hoffman's character is a whiney, wimpy, and mean spirited person who, when he finally decides to act, he does so for all of the wrong reasons & defends the wrong person. I end up hating him MORE than the bad guys.
I rank this as the most unwatchable movie I have ever seen, even below "Short Cuts".
However, if you liked "Short Cuts", you'd probably like this, and vice versa.