Much like Warrior, this remake of a vastly superior 1970’s Sam Peckinpah movie was D.O.A. at the box office when it opened last weekend. Unlike Warrior, it makes perfect sense that nobody watched it. I mean, you really lose either way with this one. On the one hand, it’s a remake of a Sam Peckinpah movie that starred Dustin Hoffman that is one of those great, slightly overrated 70’s movies (the actual movie is pretty damn silly in stretches) that nobody wants to see remade. On the other hand, it’s not exactly a known property that will inspire geek hordes to rush out and see a remake of it. So you’re really dealing with the worst of both worlds: those that know the movie will hate a remake and the majority of people don’t know it is a remake. Plus, in the torture porn era, the original Straw Dogs might look a little less shocking today so the remake–which sticks fairly close to the original–doesn’t stand out today like the original did. [The movie is about a married couple from Los Angeles moving back to the wife’s small Southern town and encountering some serious tension with local rednecks, including her ex boyfriend.]
What Works: Uhhhh…errrrr…well, there’s a nice atmosphere of dread that hangs over the early sections of the movie and almost convinces you around the middle section. Also, it was probably a good idea to change the movie’s location from rural England (which now looks quaint compared to the Tea Party crowd) to the deceptively sunny rural south.
What Doesn’t Work: This is absolutely my pick for the most poorly cast movie of 2011. James Marsden is no Dustin Hoffman and–with his squishy faced sunniness–is the exact wrong actor to cast as a beta-male wimp that has to get in touch with his dark side to save his own life. Kate Bosworth is also the exact wrong actress to play a big city girl brought low by small town dark sides (she has the emotional range of a Barbie doll) and to act out the movie’s psycho-sexual hothouse undertones (something happens between her and the rednecks). And then there’s the movie’s biggest sin: casting a quartet of rednecks and NONE of them are from the South. There’s something slightly smarmy and condescending about Alexander Skarsgard’s “interpretation” of a small town hero turned leering rapist that doesn’t fit and none of the other actors are any better at really “getting” the hypocritically “righteous” violence of the South.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Forgetting that I wouldn’t have remade this movie, I would have started with re-casting all of the major roles and even some that aren’t so major. For example, the great Walton Goggins and the so-so Anson Mount are both from the South and make cameo sized roles in this, why not cast them as part of the core group of rednecks? I mean, it’s simple stuff like that that this movie just didn’t think about. Also, it’s not a terrible idea to “recast” the director as Rod Lurie just doesn’t really get the nature of violence the way Peckinpah did, you can tell it’s something that makes him squirm instead of turns him on, and the man’s lack of demons really play out on the (overly sanitized) screen.