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An idealistic campaign politico (Ryan Gosling) backs a presidential contender (played by George Clooney ) and finds himself immersed in a world of double-crossing dirty politics and in a morass of moral and ethical dilemmas. This is a nail-biter of a political drama, as poignant a commentary on contemporary politics as Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men or Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate . It can be taken as both a condemnation of today’s political and electoral system and as a cautionary tale about how and where we place our political trust. With writing, producing and directing chores, Clooney , nominated for an Oscar for directing Good Night and Good Luck , delivers a smart, well-paced movie that shines with a cast that includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a crafty career campaign manager, Evan Rachel Wood as the intern that catches Gosling’s eye, Marisa Tomei as a New York Times reporter working all the angles, and Paul Giamatti as the man who throws the wrench into the work...

The 1971 version of this film, starring Dustin Hoffman and co-written and directed by the Sam Peckinpah ( The Wild Bunch ), is a classic tale of violence visited upon the innocent, and how violence begets violence. This remake, directed by a capable Rod Lurie ( The Contender ), stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and is set in the rural South instead of rural England, but the story stays surprisingly close to the original. A couple of city mice move to the country, and the hubby is a fish out of water in his wife’s home (hick) town. He’s not welcomed by the locals, relationships are strained and things get ugly, his wife is brutally violated and before all is said and done the couple's home is horribly and terribly besieged, and they must fight for their very lives. Straw Dogs is one of those films that should not have been remade (at the very least with present company). Instead of improving on the original it only manages to come off as a grainy monochrome copy of a colorfu...