Director Dan Reed's revenge thriller Straightheads constitutes a long, penetrating meditation on the psychological fallout experienced by two attack victims. This cathartically ultraviolent picture opens on a deceptively placid note - with romance blossoming between Alice (Gillian Anderson) and a much younger electrician, Adam (Danny Dyer). When the pair's relaxing sojourn at a country estate leads to a skirmish with a trio of backwoods toughs, Danny is beaten unconscious and scarred, and Alice brutally raped. In an attempt to cope with the trauma, the two put their heads together, pack guns, and venture out to the scene of the attack - where they plan to find the responsible parties and turn the tables by exacting an ugly toll of sexual violence on their psychotic victimizers. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
