Straightheads on DVD (2006)

williamsgwynfa [Highly rated reviewer] , 24/04/2007

this is a superb, dark and disturbing british horror movie, which is both erotic and barbaric in equal measure. the film stars Gillian Anderson as Alice ( Scully in the X files), and Danny Dyer as Adam (Outlaw and Human Traffic).

Alice and Adam are a couple returning from an exhilarating night of partying and choreographed debauchery in a lavish country house.

they speed down a wooded and desolate road, that catapults them both into a fateful collision, and a brutal and unprovoked attack, which leaves them both emotionally and physically scarred.

An attack that fuels their mission for revenge. they want their act of revenge to fit the crime, but everyone has a breaking point, and they find out that revenge is never that simple.

The term 'Straighthead' is used by gang members, to describe someone, that has never become involved in crime.

well worth watching.

  113 out of 126 people found this review helpful

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SAI81 from Tonbridge [Highly rated reviewer] , 28/04/2007

When they are brutally attacked after a party Alice (Anderson) and Adam (Dyer) are left mentally and physically scarred. A month later the Police have proved uninterested but Alice sees one of her attackers, follows him home, and begins to plot their revenge.

I love revenge movies. They speak to a uniquely visceral place in each of us. At their best they pose questions to their audience; would you do the same? Why? Why not? Straightheads is not by any means the revenge movie at it's best.

Writer/Director Dan Reed clearly thinks he's saying something with this tripe. He wants to tell us that violence isn't pretty, that it debases us all. Sadly all that Straightheads says is that vengeance may not be pretty, but it sure is funny.

Straightheads might be the funniest thing I've seen at the movies this year, which would be fine if it's antecedants were films like Airplane, rather than I Spit On Your Grave. The infamous ISOYG is a fine case in point here, it follows the same cycle of rape revenge as Straightheads but I Spit makes you complicit in everything, the rape, the experience of the rape and the vengeance. Straightheads would dearly love to do this, but can't. With a running time of just 79 minutes (though it feels interminable) it has no space to develop characters. Alice and Adam are both mere ciphers, their relationship is implausible at best, and borders on the utterly risible, because there is no build up to it and after the attack we cut immediately to a month later. There's no sense of closeness, no chemistry, not even the idea that the shared trauma may unite them.

What bothers me most about Straightheads is the question of what in the name of all that is holy Gillian Anderson is doing in it. Anderson is a very fine actress, and I think she could do something really interesting in a role like this, but there is less than nothing here for her to work with. Alice's personality changes as to Dan Reed's whims and I can't blame her for her unspeakably poor performance, but that hardly makes it better. Danny Dyer is even worse, he does his usual geezer for most of the film but it's in the absolutely toe-curlingly abysmal final reel that he should seal next years worst actor razzie with a speech about 'an eye for an eye' so poorly delivered your ears may bleed.

Just to clear up one thing i know the pervier X-Philes reading will want to know... Yes Gillian shows her breasts... yes they are spectacularly nice, the star turn of the film indeed... in no way is that brief scene worth parting with money to see, seriously, wait for the DVD caps.

I know some critics have been offended by Straightheads and I really don't understand why. It's simply not competent enough to be offensive. Clearly Dan Reed likes the rape-revenge genre, enough indeed to compile what amounts to a greatest hits reel, but while he's obviously seen those films it's just as obvious that he hasn't understood them. Really, if you want to see a film in this genre, watch Straw Dogs, watch IRREVERSIBLE, watch I Spit On Your Grave but don't waste what will feel like forever on this excremental addition to the genre.

  44 out of 54 people found this review helpful

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A customer from North London , 30/04/2007

I really didn't expect much from this film, but was pleasantly surprised. Dyer was totally believable as a young 23 year old installing wi-fi security alarms. He is invited to a party in the country by Anderson's character after installing her home system, and after a wild night out and on their way back home they are brutally attacked and Anderson is raped. Upon her father's death she returns home and spots one of the men that attacked them. She becomes obsessed with exacting her revenge on him and his mates. What follows is an interesting conclusion to what revenge does to two different people. Anderson's character seems to want resolution or an outlet to her pain. She was always the one that came across as cold and calculating. Dyer's character was the wimpy one, who seemed like he was incapable of hurting a fly. I think the message is simple: there is only futility in revenge. It achieves nothing and only perpetuates the very pain that was thrust upon the victim. The ending has an interesting twist, so well worth watching. Oh by the way, one of the reviewer mentioned Gillian's breast....don't watch the film to see her breasts....it's really not worth it! But the movie overall IS worth seeing....

  30 out of 33 people found this review helpful

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PaulaWestwood from Ashton-Under-Lyne [Highly rated reviewer] , 09/09/2007

You will be at times frightened (by how bad the acting is that managed to stay off the cutting room floor) and bemused (by the plot), which at times is horrific in what is happening, but puts this across in neither an atmospheric or sympathetic way to what is going on. It is neither gripping nor thrilling, and would just about have made a reasonable 'for TV' movie. The cast, well we generally like all those in this, Dyer etc, but it it just doesnt work. All in all a bit of a dog, that I couldnt really recommend.

  21 out of 32 people found this review helpful

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