Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

B_sides_B This movie is about a foreigner, David Sumner, who is rejected by his new community. He is a very cerebral and principled man, which the vulgar villagers tragically mistake for weakness. Their view of him permits them to ridicule and abuse him and his wife. The best example of David's principled nature is when he wants to protect a suspect of a crime, who stays in his house, from being lynched. The locals want immediate revenge, which they associate with strength. But the real strength lies in fighting for your believes, which David does. He cannot back up and ends up fighting for the lives of his wife, the suspect and himself.The greatest tragedy is that even David's wife, who grew up in this neighbourhood, regards him as weak and inadequate. The fact that they are not acting in a unified way, makes it easier for her fellow villagers to attack them. Her disappointment in David goes back to the circumstances in which they left their American home. Not much about this is revealed but she vaguely accuses him of having fled, implying cowardice. Since the movie stems from the height of the Vietnam war, my best guess is that he is a conscientious objector, forced to flee the country to escape the draft. While conscientious objectors had a brave and noble cause, their stance was often misinterpreted as cowardice. In the same way, David's civilized nature is misunderstood as weak. This makes him a truly lonely hero. As in Tao Te Ching's quote, which inspired the movie's title, heaven and earth are indifferent, treating him and all creatures as 'straw dogs.'

dworldeater Straw Dogs is a great movie that was often greatly misunderstood and controversial in its day. This is Sam Peckinpah's first non western, though it does have many similarities to the genre and in some ways is similar in its approach. Straw Dogs is best described as a cross between A Clockwork Orange and Deliverance, which were all released during the same period., This is a very complex, layered and psychological film about violence that lies dormant, but can be brought out in all of us. A small rural town in England is the backdrop and is centered on the dysfunctional relationship between married couple Dustin Hoffman and Susan George. The film gets a lot of flack for being misogynist, which I suppose some people have interpreted that way. This film is not a popcorn movie, the viewer is not supposed to feel good about the violence in the film and the behavior of the characters in this film. Straw Dogs is a very dark cinematic journey and misanthropy at its finest. Performances are excellent and Dustin Hoffman gives a brilliant performance, Susan George is equally excellent and gives a very brave performance also. Straw Dogs is definetely for people who like their movies to go down like hard liquor. While the film is harsh and uncompromising, it is rich in subtext and a brilliant and powerful film that is well done and challenging. If you can't handle that, then you are better off sticking to movies like Mrs. Doubtfire.

J M I saw this movie when I was in my teens and decided to watch it again after I heard there has been a remake (which I have chosen not to see--I have always been suspicious of remakes. Ha ha).This movie is basically a social comment on the lower-middle class of Britain (or shall I say of England, since the movie is set in Cornwall, England), how vulgar, primitive, and uncouth the values and mores of average lower middle class there had been in the late 1960' and early 70's, under the veneer of apparent civility. The townspeople including the reverend, taunt the protagonist (played by Hoffman)who is an American, with remarks on the racial tension or the nuclear bombs of the U.S. (insinuating 'moral hazard' and the threat the U.S. posed to the humankind, with the implication that they the British people were morally superior relative to the Americans.) Well, actually the Britishers turn out to be not so morally superior as the plot develops--they murder, rape, steal, cheat and harass people from outside. (The movie had been banned in Britain until 2002. I suspect the supposedly 'controversial' rape scene was not the real agenda for the ban.)Britain has been and is basically a class society, probably even more so than the pre-1917 revolution Russsia. The lower class live vulgar and the 'upper class' live pretending to be not so vulgar--however they are all the same--as Sam Peckinpah portrays the 'reverend.' The English are dangerous people to trust--They are treacherous, under veneer of civility. If you are stranded in a lifeboat with them. They will kill and eat you. Do not trust them just because they sing opera aria.

jinsilver A collection of caricatures go through the motions of a terrible script, phoning in even the most dramatic moments, spoiling an exciting premise. I'm not even referring to the Cornwall yokels here, who are at least amusing; it's the two main characters who end up being the greatest let-downs, along with the simplistic morality play of a story itself. To its credit, the film is gorgeous, full of beautiful countryside and rustic town, but that can hardly carry two hours of melodrama.Dustin Hoffman plays a perfect effete professor stereotype, a self-centered coward smugly certain of his superiority, and due to that, the near-instant switch into unbeatable gladiator makes little sense. An explosion of rage and dishing out a few good hits before going down, perhaps. This is no Falling Down, where someone on the verge of cracking for a long time finally does; this is someone who becomes savage against his nature, and somehow conjures the skill to kill every enemy. A male superhero fantasy.Susan George is competent as a petulant brat, always needing attention, pushy yet unwilling to take personal action; the nature of their relationship or why they left is never explained, but it's hinted to be teacher/student. Unfortunately, her character never really goes anywhere, and her acting never gives any nuance to even the charged, violent scene preceding the rape. The only time she seems convincing is in the bedroom scene following David's return.The bizarre direction of the rape, that quiet tenderness suggesting that the first wasn't really rape after all, that deep down an attention-seeking girl is really looking for masculine violence from her paramour that she isn't getting from her husband, really confuses me... almost a rape fantasy. And then the whole purpose of the rape is just to create some extra justification for killing the louts, along with audience titillation. In 1971, it may have been shocking to put an on-screen rape in a mainstream movie, kicking off Last House on the Left and a whole series of rape-revenge movies, but now it just looks exploitative and badly done.Rounding out the cast, there's a few louts, an affable retired army major, a teen temptress, her drunken old father, and a retarded pedophile. Their names are hardly important, because all they do is fill a role.Beyond that, no action in the film looks real. The hits don't look real. The deaths don't look real. The rape doesn't look real.Overall, there's nothing in here but a generic western, uprooted and moved to Scotland, and any nuance the story could have had is missing.