I try and remove as much external context from any movie I watch as possible. If a movie was controversial or groundbreaking in some way at the time of release, then fine, but the more important factor to me will always be the 'is it actually any good though?' factor. In the case of Straw Dogs I don't see much more than an earnest yet somewhat creaky and slow-paced tale of rural torment, that ultimately ends up looking like a 70s western with added sex + violence. It didn't strike me as anything that original or re- watchable, and I can't imagine sitting through it again.
Without giving any spoilers (to a 45 yr old film that everyone's seen) there were moments here that apparently shock to this day which I found to be fairly routine, rather than shocking. And it's not because I'm some hardened cinema tough guy whose seen it all (for example the stick-fight between Keith and Finger in Mike Leigh's Nuts In May gives me a nervous breakdown every time I watch it), but there just wasn't enough zing here to make anything jump out of the screen. The characters were well acted but barely beyond two-dimensional, the script was okayish but nothing spectacular, the incidental music was alright but sometimes clumsily applied.
Ultimately Straw Dogs is a film that takes itself very seriously and as such everything that happens has a kind of morose inevitability about it (similar to a lot of old westerns, hence the earlier comparison). It's not a -bad- movie, but I can't help thinking the notoriety factor seems to have impacted on how a lot of people perceive the film on its own terms. I can't give it more than a 5/10.
Without giving any spoilers (to a 45 yr old film that everyone's seen) there were moments here that apparently shock to this day which I found to be fairly routine, rather than shocking. And it's not because I'm some hardened cinema tough guy whose seen it all (for example the stick-fight between Keith and Finger in Mike Leigh's Nuts In May gives me a nervous breakdown every time I watch it), but there just wasn't enough zing here to make anything jump out of the screen. The characters were well acted but barely beyond two-dimensional, the script was okayish but nothing spectacular, the incidental music was alright but sometimes clumsily applied.
Ultimately Straw Dogs is a film that takes itself very seriously and as such everything that happens has a kind of morose inevitability about it (similar to a lot of old westerns, hence the earlier comparison). It's not a -bad- movie, but I can't help thinking the notoriety factor seems to have impacted on how a lot of people perceive the film on its own terms. I can't give it more than a 5/10.