The Backwoods is an exciting prospect: A survival-against-the-crazy-locals tale set in the 1970's and starring Paddy Considine and Gary Oldman. Unfortunately the film is too vague for its own good and is hampered by a weirdly over-subtle approach.
 
It's a real shame, because there are lots of good things here, not least Paddy Considine, who is marking himself out as an actor capable of escaping with dignity intact from the crappest of movies (did anyone see Doctor Sleep?). Gary Oldman - usually hammy enough to have you looking for a little curly tail on his backside - is fine here, playing the more macho, alpha-male type Paul against Considine's reserved, timid Norman.
 
The set-up is familiar but adequately handled: unwelcome city-dweller outsiders come to a strange little community where people's aunties are also their grandfathers (in this case somewhere unspecified in Spain); city-dwellers upset the community; all hell breaks loose. Cue obligitory scenes of everyone in the bar stopping mid-conversation as the out-of-towners come in for a drink, the new women awakening barely suppressed violent sexual urges within the cross-eyed males of the village, and the novice ominously being introduced to the primal nature of hunting with a shotgun. It's all tried and tested stuff, but it works.
 
Once things kick off though, the lack of a strong guiding vision from the director becomes hard to ignore. The blurb promises "Straw Dogs meets Dead Man's Shoes", and while the only similarity with the latter is Considine's presence, the inevitable comparison with the former doesn't do The Backwoods any favours at all. Indeed, when two particularly unsavoury local gents enter the isolated house where the females are (while the blokes are out hunting, of course) you might wonder why you're bothering watching this film at all and not re-watching Straw Dogs.
 
There's no getting away from it: Peckinpah's shadow looms large over The Backwoods, and it's his boldness and tenacity that's missing from this film, which ultimately offers a limp handshake where a knuckle-crushing grip was needed. Not a complete disaster, but a missed opportunity. When filmmakers enter Peckinpah territory they need their teeth bared and their balls big; The Backwoods, despite two good lead performances and some good moments, never really troubles your nerves, let alone your conscience. (Adam Hell)