This is a remake of the 1971 Sam Peckinpah film, which I have not seen. Normally, I like to see the original first but it's pretty far down the list right now and the remake was right there on the server. Well, it was. I deleted it as soon as I was done watching it. You'll see why in a minute.Screenwriter David Sellman (James Marsden) and his actress wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth), have bought a house in Amy's old hometown of Blackwater. The locals welcome Amy back with open arms, but are more distrustful of Ivy League, wealthy David, especially Amy's old boyfriend, Charlie (Alexander Skarsgaard), who has been hired to put a new roof on the Sellman's barn. Situations escalate until the only recourse is fire and blood.
This is one of those movies where you can see every time a character puts a foot wrong, it's like a nail in their coffin. The inevitability of it wears on me. Plus, they use lack of communication as a plot device and that has always annoyed me. I don't mean "oh, no, my cell phone is dead right when I needed it most" although that is also a cheap trick, but the "I know something that would cause you to act but I'm not going to tell you so you'll invariably make the wrong decision because you don't have all the facts" thing. I hate that.
It's not that there's necessarily anything wrong with this particular movie. It is suitably intense and serves its purpose in that regard, so if you like watching trainwrecks and/or any of the leads give it a shot. I'm going to hold out for the original before I say I don't like it, but I don't regret deleting it.
What is it about Franchise actors and doing anything outside of franchises that just stinks? Marsden was great as Cyclops and Skaarsgard was wonderful as Eric the Vampire on True Blood, but everything else I've seen these guys in has bombed. The two of them in other movies are easily the best actors on set sometimes (Hop and Superman Returns [what a terrible, boring movie] for Marsden and Battleship for Skasrsgard), but everything else is just..bad. There probably aren't a whole lot of films from past eras that should get remade, just because society has changed so much, every decade, and this film was dated source material when Peckinpah made it. I've known people that fit these molds, sure...I grew up rural, but people like this are rare cartoon characters today. Ugh. Great actors in a bad movie.
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