Language: English
If there’s one thing Channing Tatum knows to do extraordinarily well, it’s being goofy while simultaneously being coquettish. Part of the irresistible appeal he carries in film after film stems largely from the fact that his masculinity never treads macho territory, even when he’s all muscles and cheekbones. In Dog — Tatum’s first onscreen role since 2017 — the actor displays his trademark charm to the hilt. It turns the film, a man-pup buddy dramedy, into an easy crowd-pleaser. It helps that Tatum turns co-director for the film (along with Reid Carolin), which effortlessly succeeds in knowing exactly how to tug at your heartstrings.
Written by Carolin and Brett Rodriguez, the film revolves around a road trip undertaken by Briggs (Tatum), a former soldier and Lulu, an adorable albeit angsty Belgian Malinois. All Briggs wants is to get redeployed into active duty although that proves to be a difficult move, given that he is also reeling in the aftermath of a series of brain injuries. But he finds an opportunity in the wake of his soldier buddy Rodriguez’s death. Briggs chooses to accept a cross-country errand to drive Lulu, Rodriguez’s service dog, who worked alongside him in Iraq, all the way to Arizona for his funeral. The plan is to take Lulu to a military base and euthanise her after the funeral and all Briggs has to do is to bring her in time for the funeral.
The setting follows the classic rom-com trope: two people, burdened with trauma, go at each other until they grow to love one another in the brief span of time that they spend together. Still, Dog isn’t just invested in the wholesome cuddliness of its premise about a dog finding its master; instead, it also locates the existential issues of this odd-coupling. The film earnestly looks at the hold of PTSD on humans and canine alike (Briggs and Lulu both have PTSD — he wakes up often to a piercing ringing in his ears and Lulu gets freaked out by loud noises), the wonders of connection, and what it truly means to love another and show up for them while simultaneously making a case for triumphing over America’s political divides.
The effectiveness of the film’s messaging is complemented by the gentleness with which it delivers hard truths. Take for instance, a scene in which Lulu tackles a Muslim doctor at a hotel responding to the way he’s dressed. It falls on Briggs to explain that it isn’t a malicious act on her part, just the result of the way she was raised in the surroundings of war. Dog also gains from the multiple adventures that the format of a road-trip movie instructively offers, ably complemented by the complexity of its characterisation.
The script has an equal degree of empathy for the pair, underlining just how much people can change when loss colours their lives.
Even though Briggs and Lulu served together once upon a time, they’ve turned into completely different versions of themselves when they meet in the present. Their wounds run deep: Lulu is forced to confront the pain of losing her owner while Briggs is desperate to prove that he's good enough. Despite their differences, they're also tethered to each other because both of them know the havoc that war can wreak on hearts and minds. Naturally, it is in each other’s company that both Briggs and Lulu gather the courage to rise over their demons.
Briggs is a welcome return for Tatum, who plays the tortured soul with a lightness that makes his internalised pain all the more evocative. It helps that the actor also knows how to earn a good laugh: The opening scene, for instance, sees Tatum waking up, sweaty and shirtless, panting like a dog. He remains charismatic throughout the duration of the film, making it memorable even when he does so little. He doesn’t disappoint behind the camera either, crafting a movie that is easy to underestimate but one that never underestimates its own ambitions.
Dog is running in select theatres in India.
Rating: 3.5/5
Poulomi Das is a film and culture writer, critic, and programmer. Follow more of her writing on Twitter.
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