Dog Movie Review: Familiar slow-burning family flick

A still from Dog

Dog
Dir: Reid Carolin, Channing Tatum
Cast: Channing Tatum, Ethan Suplee, Q'orianka Kilcher, Jane Adams,
Rating: 2.5/5

When an actor creates a movie vehicle for himself you know he's going to be in every frame of it. That's essentially what happens here. Channing Tatum is producer and co-director of ‘Dog' and he is all over the place in it.

As Jackson Briggs he is a U. S. Army Ranger veteran, recovering from serious head injuries and PTSD, wanting to get back into service in order to give his life some meaning. But the army is not into rehiring 'lame' veterans. Thankfully, a senior throws him a lifeline. He is tasked with delivering a temperamental, disturbed, and dangerous, muzzled and on anti-deps, a hero Army dog, a Belgian Malinois named Lulu (played by three dogs), to the family funeral of a veteran who served with Briggs. After that Lulu is expected to be put down. So you basically know where this story is going from that point on.

Briggs, even though he said he would do anything to get back into the service, is reluctant to take on such an onerous task. The journey takes them down the Pacific Coast from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington to Nogales, Arizona and as expected, after several trials and tribulations, along the way and back, Briggs and Lulu find common ground and develop an attachment to each other.

Briggs, who has difficulty making emotional connections finds redemption while helping Lulu, the troubled canine. The narrative is structured as a road movie, and the man-dog kinship develops through some messy adventures and soul-searching moments along the way. The cinematography and music by Thomas Newman lend secure embellishment to the experience. The uneven tone may be a drawback but the director duo's optimistic approach to storytelling lends the film some heft.

Though the story feels terribly familiar, the sub-plots that lead the duo through wild, comedic, and exaggerated misadventures make the experience of it fairly endearing. Tatum does his bit to ground us in his plight and his boyish vulnerability helps pull you in further. Ultimately it's the evolving man-dog equation that lends this film some worth.