Straw Dogs

Year: 2011

Grade: B-

Country: USA

Director: Lurie

Review

saw the original almost 10 years ago and didn’t review it for some reason. i recall that one being more violent and having a somewhat different plot, especially when it came to how the home invasion came about. i also remember it being a more disturbing and unsettling film. i also remember the original playing up the emasculating of hoffman’s character more, but i could be wrong about all this. i’ll have to revisit it.

right off the bat i felt like marsden was wrong for the main character. he’s too good looking and well-built. hoffman fits the bill of the twerpy outsider more than marsden. it was a miscast part, but he did relatively well with it. relocating the film to rural mississippi was a good move. set against the backdrop of the war in iraq and high school football and all that it worked pretty well. too bad it didn’t come out 5 years ago when it would have been even better. not a bad remake.

Watched in theater