‘Dog’ Review: Man and the Beast Hit the Road


Road comedies pairing an animal with a movie star are a minor genre in their own right. The best examples in my opinion include: Clint Eastwood and An orangutan named Clydebut with the last one Eastwood and a cock it wasn’t bad. Channing Tatum is a different on-screen presence – sweeter, more talkative, chubbier – and cutely shares the screen with a dog (spoiler alert!) in “Dog,” which he co-directed with Reid Carolin.

A Belgian Malinois named Lulu (played by three talented dogs) and has served in the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan. So does Tatum’s character Jackson Briggs, a former Army Ranger living in a cabin in the northwest. His past of brain injuries has kept him out of business, but he hopes a good word from his commander will give him a chance to return overseas.

To make this happen, Jackson agrees to accompany Lulu from Fort Lewis, Ore. to Nogales, Ariz. The reason for the trip is the funeral of her caretaker, a ranger whose death in a car crash haunts Jackson and the movie. While “The Dog” is a human-beast friendly movie, it also deals with grief, trauma, and the challenges of post-war life. Lulu and Jackson are wounded warriors who must learn to trust each other and help each other heal.

While much is made of Lulu’s brutality, the film’s humor is gentle and mostly non-threatening. He chews up the seats of Jackson’s already battered Ford Bronco, disrupts his potential trio with a pair of Tantra practitioners in Portland, and causes an unfortunate commotion at a San Francisco hotel. Jackson has a variety of strange, hostile, and touching human encounters, particularly with New Age marijuana growers and a resentful, racist police officer.

“Dog” is unabashedly sentimental. A movie about a dog and a soldier couldn’t be otherwise. Fortunately, Tatum’s self-deprecating charm and Carolin’s script keep the story on the bearable side of maudlin. He’s also wary of Lulu and Jackson’s wartime experiences, which are understood as something vaguely terrifying but also magnificent. None are as complex as a real dog or a real man, making the movie an easy watch to watch, but at the expense of some credibility. He’s friendly and eager to please, but won’t hunt much.

Dog
It is rated PG-13. He barks more than bites. Working time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In movie theaters.



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