It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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

L.A. screenwriter David Sumner relocates with his wife to her hometown in the deep South. There, while tensions build between them, a brewing conflict with locals becomes a threat to them both. Straw Dogs is your typical remake from Hollywood with great actors portraying roles that someone else did decades ago and although it's not a bad remake it still wasn't needed and it has some big plot holes for example his wife got raped and she didn't say anything to the police or her husband? Why? I don't know honestly then when he kills Charlie she is shocked but some minutes ago she murdered with a shotgun the 2nd guy who raped her because i'm pretty sure Charlie raped her too it's just that the scene was weird she kissed him, she pushed and she could easily escape from him when he took her underwear off why didn't she do it? Anyways as far as acting goes everyone was fine although Dominic Purcell was the best i was surprised to see Willa Holland in a role you know Thea Queen from Arrow? Anyways the remake of Straw Dogs is not exactly awful but it could be better.

The original 1971 Sam Peckinpah version was considered at the time one of the most controversial films ever, it was both odd and interesting to see that there was a remake exactly forty years later, directed by Rod Lurie (The Last Castle). Basically screenwriter David Sumner (James Marsden) and his wife Amy (Kate Bosworth) have travelled in his Jaguar to Amy's hometown of Blackwater, Mississippi to rebuild and move into the house of her father who has recently passed away. David intends to write his screenplay about Stalingrad while the work on the house goes on, he hires contractor Charlie (True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård) and his team of friends, Norman (Rhys Coiro), Chris (Billy Lush) and Bic (Drew Powell), to repair the roof. Amy was formerly Charlie's sweetheart when she lived in the town, neither him or his crew show any respect towards her, she has a few quarrels with David, as he is concerned she is showing herself up in front of the men, one day she retaliates by lifting her part and exposing herself to them. David is invited by Charlie to go hunting with his group for deer, in fact this was a ploy for the gang to leave him stranded in the woods, while they go back to the house and rape Amy. When David does return home Amy does not tell him what happened, but drunken former football coach Tom Heddon (James Woods) calls Charlie and his friends to hunt down Jeremy Niles (Dominic Purcell), who has an intellectual disability, and has affection Heddon's fifteen-year-old daughter Janice (Willa Holland). David decides to protect Jeremy in the house, obviously he is protecting Amy, but also his own honour, desperate times call for desperate measures as they are trapped inside the house by Charlie, Heddon and the gang who have turned aggressive, the end sees all gang members killed in nasty ways, Charlie has his head ensnared in a bear trap, David, Amy and Jeremy leave lost for words. Also starring Laz Alonso as John Burke and The Hateful Eight's Walton Goggins as Daniel Niles. Marsden and Bosworth cannot compare to the more believable Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, only Skarsgård and Woods are alright among the nasty bozo buddies, the plot follows roughly the same story as the original, only relocating from rural England to redneck America, only problem it feels like a lazy effort to recreate what we've already seen, yes it is more gory towards the end, but the synonymous rape scene and violence are no longer shocking, definitely stick to the original, this is a pretty dull and boring psychological thriller remake. Adequate!

For the 30th anniversary of Dustin Hoffman's classic film, Straw Dogs, the studio decided instead of re-releasing a special edition, that they would do a modern re-make of the film. For those unfamiliar with the story, it features a local girl, from a small Mississippi town, who has returned home with her new husband, after making it big in Hollywood. Once back in town, the new couple needs some work on the old farm that she inherited and hire an old friend of hers to do the job. The team is the most qualified in town, but right from the start you can see the tension starting to build. Straw Dogs is far from being a unique story, but what I really enjoyed about it was how methodical it was. The jealousy and tension are obvious from the start, but they build it slowly, through a serious of events, which lends credibility to both sides of the argument. Things continue to build right up until the end of the film when all hell breaks loose, thanks to an incident that really shouldn't involve either the workers or the couple. James Marsden and Kate Bosworth star and are both very good, but the star that shines the brightest is Alexander Skarsgard. I've never seen him in anything before and had no expectations about the kind of job he'd do and I was blown away. He really had to play two different roles in this film and it leads to some shocking and unexpected moments. Comparing the 2011 re-make to the original film, the stories are very similar, whoever I found in parts where the original was a little slow, the re-make turns up the intensity, and that's the way things should be. A lot of re-makes don't even compare to the original and are seldom better, but in this case it was. The producers looked back at the old film and enhanced the parts of the original that were too slow or didn't make a whole lot of sense, before modernizing the whole thing. There are some people who will never admit to liking a re-make, but I think with Straw Dogs, the producers took a good film and turned it into a great one.

I really enjoyed the original not because it came out first, but the direction quality was 10 X better! First of all it was Dustin Hoffman, enough said. That it was set in an English country side vs the rural south. The plots for both were essentially the same but there were enough twists in the remake to contrast the two films. Unfortunately those factors all play in the lesser entertainment value of the remake. The characters lacked personification and just didn't stand out well enough. Actually they were all stereotypical, all the way down to the sheriff. Although James Woods certainly is a classic actor, his role seemed underplayed given his acting ability. There were some good parts to the remake, such as the scene prior to and after the football game. I suppose if the remake was the original, then it would be a better movie. If you only saw the remake, do yourself a favor and see classic Sam P. direction.