Dog
Directed by Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin
Rating: * ½
I believe Dog, as this film that hits the woof at the box office, is unanimously liked by all canine lovers.
But why?! Why must a film so shallow in its intentions and so uneven in execution that it seems to be directed by more than one person(which its is), be liked just because it has a dog as its central attraction?
Unless of course you are a Channing Tatum fan. It takes all sorts. In that case, you get the singular pleasure of watching Tatum throwing tantrums at the dog who throws them right back at him, as they start off as enemies and then gradually become so close it is like a bonding from another birth.
Please note: the premise could have worked just as well with a human child rather than a dog. Remember Tom Hanks in that solidly synergic Western News Of The World where Hanks and a troubled teenager take off on a rocky journey?
Tatum’s military man act(so one-note, you feel like singing Do re mi into his ears) comes under a cloud when he must escort a troubled dog to the funeral of her handler. It is quite obvious that the dog, expressively addressed as ‘Dog’ throughout the film , is as troubled as the man assigned to take her cross-country. They are both seen to be fighting their inner demons while barking rudely at one another.
What was potentially a moving brisk and engaging saga of two misfits thrown together,is reduced to a boring bonding game with so many loose ends you don’t know when you will slip into one of the many cracks in the narrative.
It is shocking how slipshod the end-product looks and feels. The road journey is punctuated by episodes straight out of the summer season of Lassie when the writers might have been too lazy to think up enticing ideas. So they just let the sleeping dog lie. Bouts of infuriating interaction including a weird bathtub-sharing episode between Man and Dog add nothing to the feeling of growing boredom as we look at Man and Dog in all their unexpressed joys and sorrows and feel nothing for either of them.
Some of the Tatum-Dog adventures like the one in the hotel lobby where Dog goes ballistic on seeing an Arab , must have seemed like furious fun on paper. On screen the humour falls flat.And by the time Tatum arrives et Dog’s handler’s funeral we are far too sleep-lulled to care about the inevitable reunion between Tatum and his new four-legged friend.
If you are keen on seeing a really moving and inspiring film on a man…or rather a woman’s best friend then I recommend Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s 2017 heartwarmer Meagan Levy.
I am trying to think of one kind thing to say about Dog. All I can come up with is,I want my money ‘bark’.
