7. David Sumner Straw Dogs (1971)
For most of Sam Peckinpahs unsettling chriller, David Sumner is something of a wimp, and Peckinpah goes to great lengths to point that out. He abhors violence having attended anti-war rallies in his native USA and hes a glasses-wearing, bookish and quiet mathematician. Its the epitome of a sedentary pursuit, put into stark contrast with the rough and tumble and eventually psychotic locals when he moves to village in Cornwall, England. Theyre all mens men, working outdoors with their hands and built like brutes. Of course, they turn out to be monsters, but the opposing identities are set up from the start. So when they all start coming for David after he inadvertently shelters a village idiot who accidentally committed manslaughter, you fear the worst for the academic. Yet David came prepared, and in the culmination of a slow-burning and unremittingly dark series of events, David suddenly breaks out the violence, stabbing, shooting, trapping and fire-pokering his would-be assailants to death to protect his wife. Unlike many of the transformations on this list, this isnt a hell-yeah transformative moment Peckinpahs film is just too dark for that, and to have Hoffman begin whupping people would sit entirely at odds with the films tone. No, this is a story that could easily sit in real life, the conclusion of a man pushed too far by violent attackers, and thats what makes it so disturbing. But god, what a transformation it is for the majority of the films run-time, you dont think David could do anything remotely violent, and hes even reluctant when he goes out shooting. Yet here he is, building a man-trap in his living room and throwing boiling oil over his would-be lynchers. Its very jarring, and thats precisely what Peckinpah was aiming for the idea that when pushed, all men regress to a state of violence. Its just exacerbated here because David who actor Dustin Hoffman plays remarkable well seems so meek, highlighting that even the best of us can fall.