Straw Dogs 1971

director: Sam Peckinpah  


Genre

Country

Great Britain

Alternative Titles

  • The Siege of Trencher's Farm

Cast

Synopsis

David (Dustin Hoffman) moves with his wife Amy (Susan George) to an isolated farmhouse in Cornwall trying to find peace and solitude... Instead he finds a man cannot run away from life forever. David's struggle the realities of life climaxes in a violent, terrifying fight when he is forced into commitment as he and Amy battle to preserve their home and their lives... David has always run away - turning his back on trouble, involvement and confrontation... UNTIL NOW. Sam Peckinpah unleashes the explosive, horrifying reality of one man's violent encounter with life. Straw Dogs is one of the most controversial films of all time.

Other Releases

Formats

Available on VHSAvailable on Betamax

Average User Rating: 6 Vote(s)
 
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Average User Rating
Coverscan of Straw Dogs
Video Cover Thumbnail(s)

Distributor The Video Collection
Catalogue Number VC3143
Release Series
Release Date 1985
Duration: 112m 20s
Printed Classification
Notes
User Reviews:
by Lee James Turnock
Sam Peckinpah's 'Cornish Western' - a cynical fable whose central theme is that all pacifists are just cowardly thugs under their Liberal exteriors - is alternately fascinating and frustrating. Dustin Hoffman and Susan George are the mismatched couple hoping for peace and quiet on a secluded farm, only to fall victim to a gang of local louts who mock and belittle Hoffman, kill the couple's cat and rape George in a notoriously contentious sequence that remains hard to watch (and even harder to justify) even decades later. Hoffman finally snaps, of course, and begins to relish the apocalyptic violence. Photographer John Coquillion serves the material well with a palette of muted colours (as he would later do with Peckinpah's bloody World War Two thriller Cross of Iron), David Warner is superb as the persecuted local misfit and the twitchy, restless editing adds to the overall atmosphere of impending doom, but in the final analysis, Straw Dogs is nobody's finest hour - now, more than ever, it seems to exist as an exercise in testing the boundaries and upsetting the audience. If that was Peckinpah's intention all along, he undoubtedly succeeded.