Straightheads
Encyclopedia
Straightheads is a 2007
British
thriller film
which follows a couple who are seeking revenge against a group of men who brutally attacked them. It is written and directed by Dan Reed, who made his directorial début.
The film features Gillian Anderson
as Alice Comfort and Danny Dyer
as Adam.
After a drive, Alice and Adam arrive at the party. Alice leaves Adam to speak to some people at the party. Adam leaves the house, feeling out of place. Alice later finds Adam outside in the backyard, then leads him into some nearby woods and they have sex.
On the way home from the party, Alice and Adam are caught behind a slow-moving vehicle, which Alice frustratedly overtakes whilst Adam shouts out obscenities at the driver. Shortly thereafter, Alice is distracted from driving and accidentally hits a deer. She brings the car to a stop, and they drag the body off the road. While they are moving the body, the car that Alice had earlier overtaken pulls up to them. Several men get out, beat Adam into submission, and then gang-rape Alice.
A month passes, during which Adam and Alice physically heal - the only reminder of the attack being an eyepatch that Adam must wear to protect an eye wound he received during the beating - but both remain emotionally wounded. Upon returning to work, Alice receives notification that, while she was hospitalized following her rape, her father died. Alice drives out to his country estate to put his affairs in order, where she discovers a locked chest that she recognizes from her childhood. On the way home, she passes by a group of men on horseback, one of whom she recognizes as having raped her. She gets his name - Heffer - from one of the other men.
Alice then contacts Adam, and he makes his way to Alice's father's house where she tells him that she's found one of the men responsible for attacking them. Alice shows Adam the contents of her father's locked chest: a sniper rifle and silencer that her father apparently smuggled home after being discharged from the army. Alice then tells Adam that she intends to avenge herself against Heffer.
Adam and Alice move into Alice's father's home, and spend their days practising shooting with the rifle. After they have become proficient with it, they take a trip out to the edge of Heffer's land and begin plotting on the best way to kill him. During their reconnaissance, they learn that Heffer has a dog on his property, that attempts to attack them any time they near the house. Alice shoots the dog, then makes a remorseful Adam collect its corpse so that they can dispose of it. A moment later, Heffer comes outside looking for the dog; Alice prepares to shoot him when a young woman (later identified as Heffer's daughter, Sophie) comes out of the house to help find the dog. Alice and Adam, disturbed by seeing their attacker as a human being, return home.
Over the next several days Alice and Adam try to determine if they should follow through with their plan; Adam, who has been impotent since the attack, steadily becomes more aggressive and committed to the idea of murdering Heffer. Alice, however, has grown reluctant to kill Heffer now that she has seen him in a human context; instead, she sends Adam to clandestinely set up security equipment in Heffer's house in an attempt to determine the identities and locations of his friends who participated in the gang-rape, so that they can kill them instead.
Adam succeeds in breaking into Heffer's house, where he learns that Heffer is the submissive party in his relationship with the other attackers. In need of money, they have decided to extort Heffer with knowledge of the rape, forcing him to give them money in exchange for not anonymously tipping the police as to his identity.
Adam, seeking a means of escape, ends up in Sophie's room; initially, he merely attempts to keep her quiet so that he can get out of the house, but he has a sudden fit of rage and begins raping her. In the middle of the attack, she escapes his grasp, and Adam returns home, able to maintain an erection for the first time since the attack. He and Alice begin to have sex, but when he starts to become too rough with her she throws him off. Adam leaves the house and heads out into the woods.
The next day, Alice uses a laptop computer that controls the security cameras and watches Heffer in his house. She quickly realises his intention is to kill himself and after grabbing the rifle she drives over, and stops her car just in front of a garage upon hearing a car horn sounding. Alice gets inside the garage and finds Heffer, sitting in his running car, attempting to kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning. Alice gets Heffer out of the car and into fresh air, saving his life; once he regains consciousness, she helps him back into his house. In the midst of a delirium from the carbon monoxide, Heffer—who doesn't recognize Alice—confesses that, a month ago, his friends voiced their intentions to rape his daughter, but that he convinced them to rape and beat a woman and her friend in the middle of the road instead.
Just then, Alice and Heffer hear Adam calling from outside, and Heffer suddenly turns violent, grabbing her roughly but Alice hits him and frees herself. Adam then bursts into the house, beats Heffer, duct-tapes him to the kitchen table, and holds him down while Alice sodomizes him with the barrel of the rifle that she has fetched from her car; once she is finished, she prepares to kill him, but now feeling pity for him because of the circumstances surrounding the rape, she decides not to pull the trigger. Adam, infuriated, takes out a hunting knife and carves out Heffer's eye. Horrified, Alice runs away; driving back to her father's home, Alice spots Sophie hitch-hiking, and invites her into her car. When Sophie realizes she isn't being taken home, she asks Alice where they're headed; Alice replies, "Someplace safe."
Back at Heffer's house, Adam taunts Heffer until he hears a car pulling up; as one of the attackers approaches the house, Adam fatally shoots him in the head before pursuing the remaining attacker through the grounds of Heffer's house. Adam shoots him in the leg as he flees, causing him to fall to the ground. Adam then approaches the wounded man and bludgeons him to death with the end of the rifle. In the final shot of the film, Adam walks away from his final victim and approaches the screen for a close up shot. He effectively breaks the fourth wall
by glancing at the audience - leaving the viewer to reflect on the violent act of revenge Adam has committed.
reported that 39% of 18 listed film critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 10.
2007 in film
This is a list of major films released in 2007.-Top grossing films:Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top grossing films that were first released in the USA in 2007...
British
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
thriller film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
which follows a couple who are seeking revenge against a group of men who brutally attacked them. It is written and directed by Dan Reed, who made his directorial début.
The film features Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
as Alice Comfort and Danny Dyer
Danny Dyer
Danny Dyer is an English actor, media personality, and chairman of Greenwich Borough, a non-League football team.-Biography:Daniel John Dyer was born in Custom House, an area of East London, to Antony and Christine Dyer...
as Adam.
Synopsis
After leaving a party, a couple are brutally attacked by a group of men. After the police fail in finding their assailants, the couple decide to go after the men. The film examines the emotional and sexual issues caused by both the original attack and the decision to seek revenge.Plot
Adam, a 23-year-old self-employed security technician, is hired by a businesswoman, Alice Comfort, to set up a security system in her house. After finishing the work, Adam falls asleep on a lawnchair in her backyard. When Alice arrives home and finds him there, she impulsively asks him to accompany her to a housewarming party for her boss. He is unsure, but eventually agrees.After a drive, Alice and Adam arrive at the party. Alice leaves Adam to speak to some people at the party. Adam leaves the house, feeling out of place. Alice later finds Adam outside in the backyard, then leads him into some nearby woods and they have sex.
On the way home from the party, Alice and Adam are caught behind a slow-moving vehicle, which Alice frustratedly overtakes whilst Adam shouts out obscenities at the driver. Shortly thereafter, Alice is distracted from driving and accidentally hits a deer. She brings the car to a stop, and they drag the body off the road. While they are moving the body, the car that Alice had earlier overtaken pulls up to them. Several men get out, beat Adam into submission, and then gang-rape Alice.
A month passes, during which Adam and Alice physically heal - the only reminder of the attack being an eyepatch that Adam must wear to protect an eye wound he received during the beating - but both remain emotionally wounded. Upon returning to work, Alice receives notification that, while she was hospitalized following her rape, her father died. Alice drives out to his country estate to put his affairs in order, where she discovers a locked chest that she recognizes from her childhood. On the way home, she passes by a group of men on horseback, one of whom she recognizes as having raped her. She gets his name - Heffer - from one of the other men.
Alice then contacts Adam, and he makes his way to Alice's father's house where she tells him that she's found one of the men responsible for attacking them. Alice shows Adam the contents of her father's locked chest: a sniper rifle and silencer that her father apparently smuggled home after being discharged from the army. Alice then tells Adam that she intends to avenge herself against Heffer.
Adam and Alice move into Alice's father's home, and spend their days practising shooting with the rifle. After they have become proficient with it, they take a trip out to the edge of Heffer's land and begin plotting on the best way to kill him. During their reconnaissance, they learn that Heffer has a dog on his property, that attempts to attack them any time they near the house. Alice shoots the dog, then makes a remorseful Adam collect its corpse so that they can dispose of it. A moment later, Heffer comes outside looking for the dog; Alice prepares to shoot him when a young woman (later identified as Heffer's daughter, Sophie) comes out of the house to help find the dog. Alice and Adam, disturbed by seeing their attacker as a human being, return home.
Over the next several days Alice and Adam try to determine if they should follow through with their plan; Adam, who has been impotent since the attack, steadily becomes more aggressive and committed to the idea of murdering Heffer. Alice, however, has grown reluctant to kill Heffer now that she has seen him in a human context; instead, she sends Adam to clandestinely set up security equipment in Heffer's house in an attempt to determine the identities and locations of his friends who participated in the gang-rape, so that they can kill them instead.
Adam succeeds in breaking into Heffer's house, where he learns that Heffer is the submissive party in his relationship with the other attackers. In need of money, they have decided to extort Heffer with knowledge of the rape, forcing him to give them money in exchange for not anonymously tipping the police as to his identity.
Adam, seeking a means of escape, ends up in Sophie's room; initially, he merely attempts to keep her quiet so that he can get out of the house, but he has a sudden fit of rage and begins raping her. In the middle of the attack, she escapes his grasp, and Adam returns home, able to maintain an erection for the first time since the attack. He and Alice begin to have sex, but when he starts to become too rough with her she throws him off. Adam leaves the house and heads out into the woods.
The next day, Alice uses a laptop computer that controls the security cameras and watches Heffer in his house. She quickly realises his intention is to kill himself and after grabbing the rifle she drives over, and stops her car just in front of a garage upon hearing a car horn sounding. Alice gets inside the garage and finds Heffer, sitting in his running car, attempting to kill himself with carbon monoxide poisoning. Alice gets Heffer out of the car and into fresh air, saving his life; once he regains consciousness, she helps him back into his house. In the midst of a delirium from the carbon monoxide, Heffer—who doesn't recognize Alice—confesses that, a month ago, his friends voiced their intentions to rape his daughter, but that he convinced them to rape and beat a woman and her friend in the middle of the road instead.
Just then, Alice and Heffer hear Adam calling from outside, and Heffer suddenly turns violent, grabbing her roughly but Alice hits him and frees herself. Adam then bursts into the house, beats Heffer, duct-tapes him to the kitchen table, and holds him down while Alice sodomizes him with the barrel of the rifle that she has fetched from her car; once she is finished, she prepares to kill him, but now feeling pity for him because of the circumstances surrounding the rape, she decides not to pull the trigger. Adam, infuriated, takes out a hunting knife and carves out Heffer's eye. Horrified, Alice runs away; driving back to her father's home, Alice spots Sophie hitch-hiking, and invites her into her car. When Sophie realizes she isn't being taken home, she asks Alice where they're headed; Alice replies, "Someplace safe."
Back at Heffer's house, Adam taunts Heffer until he hears a car pulling up; as one of the attackers approaches the house, Adam fatally shoots him in the head before pursuing the remaining attacker through the grounds of Heffer's house. Adam shoots him in the leg as he flees, causing him to fall to the ground. Adam then approaches the wounded man and bludgeons him to death with the end of the rifle. In the final shot of the film, Adam walks away from his final victim and approaches the screen for a close up shot. He effectively breaks the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
by glancing at the audience - leaving the viewer to reflect on the violent act of revenge Adam has committed.
Cast
- Gillian AndersonGillian AndersonGillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
as Alice Comfort - Danny DyerDanny DyerDanny Dyer is an English actor, media personality, and chairman of Greenwich Borough, a non-League football team.-Biography:Daniel John Dyer was born in Custom House, an area of East London, to Antony and Christine Dyer...
as Adam - Anthony CalfAnthony CalfAnthony Calf is a British actor, born in Hammersmith, London, England. He studied acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art . He has recurring roles in the television medical drama Holby City, as Michael Beauchamp, and New Tricks as Strickland...
as Heffer - Francesca FowlerFrancesca FowlerFrancesca Fowler is a British actress, best known for her appearance in the 2007 thriller movie Straightheads alongside Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer; she is also recognised for her appearances in Rome HBO, and various BBC TV series.-Career:Fowler made her acting debut in the British TV movie,...
as Sophie - Ralph BrownRalph BrownRalph William John Brown is an English actor and writer, known for playing Danny the drug dealer in Withnail and I, the security guard Aaron in Alien 3, DJ Bob Silver in The Boat That Rocked, and the pilot Ric Olié in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace...
as Jamie - Steven RobertsonSteven RobertsonSteven Robertson is a Scottish theatre and film actor.-Education:* Vidlin Primary School* Brae High School* Anderson High School, Lerwick* Fife College , Kirkcaldy...
as Bill
Critical reception
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 39% of 18 listed film critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 10.
DVD & Blu-ray Disc release
- Ahead of its UK retailRetailRetail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
release, Straightheads became available on DVD for rental exclusively from Blockbuster on 24 August 2007. This rental version had no special features. It went on general retail release on 24 September 2007. Dan Reed reported in his Blog that himself, Gillian Anderson, and Danny Dyer recorded the commentary in December 2006. This commentary forms part of the Special Features for the Region 2 DVD which also included deleted scenes with audio commentary (again from Anderson, Dyer, and Reed), behind the scenes cast interviews and the theatrical trailer. HMVHMVHis Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
's release of the DVD came with an exclusive see-through slipcase. Straigtheads was re-released on 13 June 2011 where the only difference is the new cover art.
- For its U.S. release, Straightheads has been retitled Closure and been released directly-to-DVD by Sony Pictures. As per the date reported by the website DVD Times, the Region 1 DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released on 18 September 2007 and has no Special Features.
- Straightheads was released to Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on 22 March 2010 available from all retailers in the UK. HMV released the Blu-ray Disc earlier on 25 January 2010 as an exclusive for retail only from their in-store and on-line shops. The Blu-ray Disc's special features are identical to the Region 2 DVD release. Straightheads was re-released on 13 June 2011 where the only difference is the new cover art.
External links
- Straightblog Director Dan Reed on making Straightheads
- Straightheads at Verve Pictures
- Straightheads at Lumina Films
- Straightheads at The Internet Movie Database
- Trailer at ODEON