Dog Gone
Dog Gone is streaming on Netflix at the time of writing. Rated TV-PG. Common Sense says 10.
STORY: C
Boy meets dog, boy loses dog. It’s a love story as old and rich as time. Is there an easier way to get an audience emotionally involved in a story than including a canine? I doubt it. I know I screamed, “Gonker!” at least 572 times while watching this movie.
The story is largely paint-by-numbers. It stays in the lines. It ‘s never allowed to run free, to follow a particularly interesting scent. It’s not a bad story; it just doesn’t feel alive.
PEOPLE: D+
With a tame story like this, it would be difficult to expect anything different from the acting. No one feels natural. Everyone pauses or scratches their chin or slowly places a hand on their hip before saying something meaningful. You half expect a literal spotlight to appear.
It will remind you of “after-school special” acting, if you’re old enough to remember what after school specials are. If you’re not, you can thank me later for sending you down that campy, cringy YouTube rabbit hole.
FILM NERD STUFF: C-
There’s not a moment in this film where the filmmaking impresses. It’s not bad, I’m just saying that it’s all pretty straight-forward. It’s competent, but unimaginative. Much like this paragraph.
POWER OF THE DOG (Elective Class): A-
I grew up in Buffalo, and I have lived in Cincinnati for close to fifteen years. Even if you’re not a football fan, you’re probably familiar with Damar Hamlin, the player who suffered a horrific cardiac arrest during a routine football play. I was at the stadium, and it was one of the scariest nights of my life.
I shed a lot of tears over the days following the accident. I watched the communities of Buffalo and Cincinnati unite to support this young man. I watched love pour in from around the entire world. And as I sat watching this cheesy movie, I felt familiar tears poking at my eyelids.
This confused me at first. The Damar and Gonker situations don’t immediately feel similar. But in both cases, strangers come together to help others who are in pain. It wasn’t when Damar went down that I cried. It was seeing the letters written by school kids telling Damar they loved him. It was driving past downtown Cincinnati and seeing every building lit up in blue and red. I also didn’t cry when Gonker ran away. It was every time a stranger walked up to Fielding and his dad to offer help.
I’m not sure how often we see that type of kindness in real life. It feels rare, at least. It may be disappointing that we only see this type of kindness in times of tragedy, but in a way it’s also nice to know that we - human beings - have it in us. It’s a reminder to use it when our world isn’t falling apart.
FINAL COMMENTS:
If this movie were a dog it would be one of those dogs that sits by its master’s side and obediently performs every basic trick in the book: sit, stay, roll over, shake hands. A very good dog. We love those dogs, but they rarely make a huge impression.
The magic happens when we let the dog do whatever it wants - when we let them do goofy, quirky, dog things. Like this. Those are the things that make a dog memorable and beloved. This movie is a very good dog. And dog lovers will love it. But it might have been better if it had been let off its leash just a little bit.