Dog isn’t the movie you think it is. From its poster and tagline (“A filthy animal unfit for human company and a… Dog”), the joint directorial debut of Channing Tatum and long-term producing partner Reid Carolin appears to be a misadventures-with-a-mutt movie, full of shaggy shenanigans and heart, of the type that has been a mainstay of cinema since movies began. While Dog certainly borrows licks from the sub-genre’s playbook — a wet hound shaking water all over a posh hotel bed; two broken souls who heal each other — it shoots for a more interesting take, encompassing a portrait of a disenfranchised middle America and a more nuanced commentary on the life of post-war vets. The result is a mixed bag, held together by Tatum’s easy-going charisma.
Based on a road trip taken by Tatum to California’s Big Sur with his dog — also named Lulu — shortly before she died from cancer, Dog is essentially Rain Man, with Dustin Hoffman replaced by a pooch. Tatum’s former army ranger Jackson Briggs is itching to get back to battle — he has a ‘Ride Of The Valkyries’ ring tone — but is stuck messing up orders in a sandwich shop, estranged from his wife Niki (Q'orianka Kilcher) and kid, all marinated in dark nights of the soul fuelled by booze and pills. Lulu is a military dog triggered by any sign of combat, who relaxes watching videos of her greatest maulings but also has the comic timing to scupper “the most epic threesome ever”.
Unusually for a film about man’s connection to animals, it’s the man who steals the show.
The episodic 1,500-mile road trip becomes a peg on which to hang a series of vignettes as Briggs attempts to deliver Lulu to the funeral of her former owner. As such, it’s a meandering tale that relies too heavily on Briggs’ monologuing to his canine charge, but Carolin and Brett Rodriguez’s screenplay finds some character quirks (Kevin Nash’s violent conscientious objector, Jane Adams’ cat psychic) and enjoyable set-pieces (Lulu uses her sniffer skills to track down Briggs’ stolen belongings) to keep it engaging. Sometimes this means there are some bumps in tone: a sequence where Briggs pretends to be blind while using Lulu as a guide dog belongs to a different, inferior movie. To Tatum and Carolin’s credit, it is never mawkish, but it is never gut-wrenching either. The screenplay also never tellingly joins the dots tracing Briggs’ emotional growth. It’s easier to chart the dog’s interior journey than the human’s.
Lulu is by turns Adam Driver intense and Joe Pesci volatile, with the occasional touch of sly Owen Wilson laid-back-ness — her refusal to get into a bath is charm personified. But, unusually for a film about man’s connection to animals, it’s the man who steals the show. Tatum’s unique blend of old-school magnetism and modern sensitivities keeps your attention, despite the thinness of the material, the actor as happy swanning around in a floral dressing gown or lip-synching ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ as he is with the macho military stuff. Fronting a film for the first time since 2017’s Logan Lucky, Tatum gives an old dog new tricks.