Straw Dogs

Sam Peckinpah’s original 1971 ‘Straw Dogs’, for all its drink ’n’ drug-hazy dealings with topical themes like feminism, righteous violence and ‘what it means to be a man’, was at least an expertly blood-boiling brickbat. Rod Lurie’s remake barely musters a pulse. Instead of Dustin Hoffman’s meek mathematician, we get ageing pretty-boy screenwriter David Sumner (James Marsden), who takes over the isolated house left to his sorta-dim-bulb wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth). The storyline is similar: some roof work needs doing. A few local boys led by Amy’s ex, Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård), volunteer. Tensions escalate. Slutty girl who may well ‘be asking for it’ gets raped. Rednecks attack. Humble guy doles out violent humble pie. Lurie adds nothing new save for some weak comment on Hollywood’s obsession with torture porn. And he encourages his cast to go more for cheap-seats ham than trenchant horror, which only heightens the sense that we’re being sold derivative goods.