Straw Dogs

This remake has no reason to exist. It is shallow and poorly acted and lacks most of the tense emotions and moral questions raised by the original. Hollywood at its worst, cellophane-wrapped, uninspired, made-for-TV quality, cookie cutter remake. Of course, it is padded with clichés, cheap effects and mass-appeal frosting to bring out brain-dead teen movie goers. Why did a great actor like James Wood let himself get suckered into this disaster? This could have been an so-so B-action movie but trying to cash in on the status of Sam Peckinpah's cult classic is a really cheap move. It also forces me to give it a 1-star rating rather than a 4 to 5 rating it could have earned if it didn't ask to be compared with the former.

If you consider watching this movie, please rent the original instead. It is still as intense as it was in 1971 and actually raises a lot of disturbing questions. A true classic.

I expected this movie to be yet another terrible remake and turn it off after 15 minutes. But know know what? This was actually a good remake.

While the movie is very similar to the original, they did make some small changes here and there, mainly in the characters background and their motivation - which might help explain some things that seemed a bit odd in the original (for example, why would a beautiful blonde marry a geek). Others may claim the writer ruined some ideas.

It's hard and unfair to compare the actors' performance to Dustin Hoffman and David Warner in the original, but I have to say that all the cast actually did a decent job. James Woods was excellent as a southern redneck and Kate Bosworth was surprisingly good too. I'm not familiar with any of the other actors, who were all decent in their roles.

The ending had some small changes too - again, made in order for the characters to have a better motivation. Still, I prefer the ending of the original, which I recall was more intense and more "surreal", made to show a man protecting his "castle".

All in all, this remake is much better than many of the recent remakes I've seen (or chose to skip). Was this remake necessary? Probably not.

5/10 Worth watching

David and his wife Amy move to her childhood home in Mississippi. Things take a turn for the worst when David hires Charlie, Amy's ex-boyfriend, as a builder for the renovations.

Straw Dogs is a film I wanted to watch when it was first released but I have never gotten around until now, 10 years after it was first released.

I believe this remake follows the original very closely, with plenty of nods to the 1971 film in its story of human nature and grisly violence. The film is well-casted with Bosworth & Marsden as the leads, bringing simmering intensity to their roles. I found Skarsgard was great too in an incredibly disturbing turn. As a whole, it works well as a visceral, disturbing, and well-made thriller about ordinary people fighting for survival. It follows an interesting story that raises questions about the way we treat each other. The arguably better first half of the film does a great job of establishing its characters and conflicts between them with tense drama, whilst the second half is more focused on emotional, ambiguous, and exciting violence. While it might not be a perfect film and certainly not an original one or for all audiences, it's a testament to the power of the story and it works for what it's intending to do and be. The plot boils up nicely, heated by Alexander Skarsgard's sinisterly compelling thug leader and set bubbling by James Woods's terrific turn as a semi-psychotic town elder. I will check out the original at some point in the future.

After reading the reviews of this film and seeing the original, I wasn't really looking forward to watching this movie but glad I did

I suggest to ignore all previous bad reviews & not to compare with the original 1971 film I thought this was a well made movie, with a good cast. The story line is similar to the original but in my opinion better but just bought in to the 21st century.

Acting was very good, very surprised & quite annoyed at some of the comments

I enjoy watching many movies & have to say this has been one of the better movies I have watched recently.

Watch it with an open mind Enjoy as I did. Very good movie

Most modern remakes carry with them a whiff of disappointment, a general feeling of déjà vu and a sense that watching is time wasted because they're invariably going to be worse than the original (apart from in a few instances). The same can well be said of STRAW DOGS, a film that relocates Sam Peckinpah's controversial classic in the southern USA but otherwise tells exactly the same story, with the same sequences and even the same dialogue beats.

Put simply, STRAW DOGS is a fine enough film in itself and would be more impressive if the original didn't exist. Compared to the original, it comes second in every way; the cast is a lot worse, the direction is non-existent compared to Peckinpah's masterful stylistics, and the power is just lacking. Fans of the original would do better to stick with that because there's no way this film has a hope of coming close to it.

Taken as a standalone movie, though, and compared to other modern thrillers, it turns out to be…well, not bad. The slow-building plot is as effective as ever, and the climax doesn't disappointment when it arrives and unleashes a wave of violence upon the screen. James Marsden struggles because you can't help but compare him to Dustin Hoffman in the role, and Kate Bosworth doesn't really capture that level of coquettishness that the Susan George character had, either.

But the supporting players are better, and Alexander Skarsgard is particularly sinister as the bad guy who doesn't really do anything all that bad – although we hate him anyway. James Woods ignites the screen, as ever, and Dominic Purcell offers a completely different performance to David Warner's, so his role is all the better for it.

So what we have here is a film that can be taken in two different ways. As a remake, it's a pale effort compared to the vibrant original. As a standalone movie, it's a pretty tense thriller with a gripping storyline. I liked it enough the first time around, but is it worth a rewatch? Not like the original.