This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The first rule of remakes, Neve Campbell's character Sidney Prescott reminded us this year in "Scream 4," is that "you don't [bleep] with the original."
In the vicious and pointless "Straw Dogs," writer-director Rod Lurie — who was a film critic before he made movies, so he should know better — violates that rule to disastrous effect. He turns Sam Peckinpah's devastating 1971 exploration of masculinity and violence into a schlocky and bloody rabble-rouser.
David and Amy Sumner, played by James Marsden and Kate Bosworth, are an L.A. screenwriter and actress. They have temporarily relocated from Hollywood to Blackwater, Miss., Amy's hometown — and a place she was unenthusiastic about revisiting. (The original, with Dustin Hoffman and Susan George in the lead roles, was set in rural England.)
In the farmhouse owned by Amy's late father, David gets busy working on a screenplay, about the siege of Stalingrad during World War II. With his glasses, preppy sneakers and sporty Jaguar, David is nothing like the pickup-driving, Confederate flag-flying, Sunday sermon-listening men who stayed behind when Amy left town. And those men, personified by Amy's muscular ex-boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård, from "True Blood"), won't let David forget that.
First the harassment is mild, such as when Charlie and his buddies — hired to repair a barn on the Sumners' property — ogle a sweaty Amy while jogging. But as events escalate, Amy questions what it will take for David to stand up to Charlie.
And here's where Lurie diverges substantially — and fatally — from the script Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman wrote in 1971.
In the original, the final showdown at the Sumners' house becomes the last stand for Dustin Hoffman's David, where he finally asserts his manhood and declares, "I will not allow violence against this house."
In Lurie's remake, that crucial dialogue is missing, along with the motivation behind it. The confrontation — which involves Charlie's gang helping the hot-tempered Coach Hedden (James Woods, over the top even by his standards) seek revenge against the town's mentally challenged sex offender (Dominic Purcell) — is reduced to a simple "kill them before they kill us" scenario that robs the violence of its dark purpose.
Lurie painstakingly copies many of Peckinpah's set pieces, particularly in the choreography of the violent finale (though he does make a necessary change to one crucial scene of violence involving Bosworth's character). But Lurie is following the notes without capturing the tune. The result is a movie that is, in a word, neutered.
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'Straw Dogs'
This remake of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 shocker amps up the violence, but for all the wrong reasons.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens today.
Rating • R for strong brutal violence including a sexual attack, menace, some sexual content and pervasive language.
Running time • 110 minutes.