Upon moving to Britain to get away from American violence, astrophysicist David Sumner and his wife Amy are bullied and taken advantage of by the locals hired to do construction. When David finally takes a stand it escalates quickly into a bloody battle as the locals assault his house.

Straw Dogs (1971)
  • Rating: (26,507 votes)
  • Taglines:The knock at the door meant the birth of one man and the death of seven others! » Sometimes a man is forced to defend his honor. »
  • Runtime:118 minutes
  • Director: Sam Peckinpah
  • Countries:USA, UK
  • Actors:
    David Sumner
    Dustin Hoffman
    Amy Sumner
    Susan George
    Tom Hedden
    Peter Vaughan
    Major John Scott (as T. P. McKenna)
    T.P. McKenna
    Charlie Venner
    Del Henney
    Chris Cawsey
    Jim Norton
    Riddaway
    Donald Webster
    Norman Scutt
    Ken Hutchison
    Bobby Hedden
    Len Jones
    Janice Hedden
    Sally Thomsett
  • Genres:Drama, Thriller
  • Producers:
    Daniel Melnick
    producer  
    James Swann
    associate producer  
  • Plots: Dustin Hoffman plays a regular American mathematician, who gets into some trouble with local bullies. He is made fun of and then his wife is raped. When they attack his home, he fights back. His outbreak of violence is extreme. Written by B.Pico
Straw Dogs
  • User's comment:Fantastic thriller that holds its own after 30 years by FilmOtaku (ssampon@hotmail.com)

    Straw Dogs is an intense thriller that shows what can happen when you push even the most mild mannered man too far. Dustin Hoffman plays a mathematician who temporarily moves to a house in a rural village in England with his wife, a former resident of the town, played by Susan George. The two withstand incessant needling from several of the townsfolk until George is raped and assaulted and Hoffman is pushed over the edge.

    Incidentally, right after watching this film I found a documentary on cable about filmmakers from the late '60s to late '70s and one of the directors profiled was Sam Peckinpah. I had always considered his films to be violent and vaguely shocking, which never surprised me, knowing that he was a hard-living maverick who did things his way - an element that is resplendent in most of his films. A brief mention of Straw Dogs was included in this documentary, where they described it as a "sexist film". There are obvious scenes in the film that could support this criticism, but I think that is overanalyzing the film with a political correctness that is out of place. While the two female characters are both victimized, Susan George also has her moments of empowerment. I may be a female, but I don't consider Peckinpah's tendency to make testosterone-driven films any more sexist than anything that Tarantino puts out, and I'm a big fan of his work as well. It's a dangerous line to draw when one labels a film due to what is *not* included in a film.

    What this film does contain is much more stellar - Hoffman is beyond incredible in this film. His character development is amazing to experience. One criticism of the film that I heard from a friend who saw it before me was that it "dragged." I couldn't disagree more. The development of the story until the extremely violent climax is a perfect pace because it made me feel like I was sitting in a dentist chair, knowing that this low boil could explode at any time. After the dust settles, the viewer is left to decide whether Hoffman's character made the right decision, and left to speculate on the ramifications of the choices made. This is by far one of the best films I've seen in recent months and plan to seek out the newly released Criterion edition in my quest to find out as much about this film as I can.

    --Shelly


  • Quotes: Henry Niles: I don't know my way home. David Sumner: That's okay. I don't either. Tom Hedden, Charlie Venner: Now some men goes for women, and some men goes for boys. But My love's warm and beautiful, and makes a baah-ing noise.
  • Also known as: Perros de paja (Argentina), Perros de paja (Peru), Perros de paja (Spain), Psi od slame (Croatia), Psi od slame (Serbia), Adespota skylia (Greece - transliterated ISO-LATIN-1 title), Cães de Palha (Portugal), Cane di paglia (Italy), Halmhundarna (Finland - imdb display title, Swedish title), Köpekler (Turkey - Turkish title), Køterne (Denmark), Les chiens de paille (France), Los perros de paja (Uruguay), Nedzne psy (Poland), Olkikoirat (Finland), Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (UK - complete title), Sob o Domínio do Medo (Brazil), Straw Dogs (Sweden - imdb display title), Straw Dogs - De galna hundarna (Sweden - video title), Straw Dogs - det galna gänget (Sweden - alternative title), Strawdogs (USA - review title), Szalmakutyák (Hungary), Wer Gewalt sät (West Germany),

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