In his directorial debut, Channing Tatum creates a buddy comedy that at its surface seems as if it’s been done hundreds of times before – and it has. Person meets dog. Inevitably each is going through some kind of trauma. Person saves dog. Dog saves person. The hackneyed but true statement about dog and human saving each other underscores movies like Marley and Me, My Dog Skip, A Dog’s Purpose, and many, many more. This film uses many conventions of the “dog movie” but it fine tunes them into a deeply moving portrait of dog and man.
Let me be clear – my dog is my best friend. I take her everywhere I can, let her sleep with me, exercise her regularly and play frisbee with her countless times in a given day. I listen to her every movement the way I did with my kids when they were toddlers and I give into her more often than I should because I know one day she’ll be gone. And this last inevitability makes for a tender but really fun adventure. But even though I love dogs, or maybe because of it, I don’t want to see a sappy, unrealistic dog-person relationship nor do I relish the idea of spending time or money on a movie in which the dog protagonist just dies at the end. Why would I put myself through that horror? Nope, just give me a movie like Frankenweenie and Bolt, cartoons that not only wonderfully capture a dog’s personality and friendships with humans but also won’t let death conquer, even after multiple attempts.
This film is the kind of live action buddy comedy dog movie I’ve always wanted. It follows the misadventures of former Army Ranger Briggs (Tatum) and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois dog) as they travel along the Pacific Coast toward Lulu’s previous owner’s funeral. Unlike a lot of movies about dogs, this is not one that overtly sympathizes with Lulu. She’s a real beast in many ways – unruly, quick to anger, scared of thunder, and hungry for anything in the car, including water bottles. We quickly realize that she’s reacting to the same kind of PTSD that Briggs has – their senses are heightened and their traumas from the war are clear in both human and dog eyes – they are broken and deeply sad. What is unspoken in this film feels very genuine, and it never becomes too cute. We feel for both characters and delight when they do finally come to understand each other, but the film gets to this point patiently and doesn’t compromise real emotion for cheap jokes or too many sweet moments.
Channing Tatum is a great actor and it’s really nice to see him branching out from the Magic Mike movies into more, ahem, meaty territory. He’s got a good eye for film direction and a knack for dramatic acting. In The Lost City, he plays a more comedic role that plays against all his previous stereotypes and creates a pretty fun movie in the process.
The film follows a reclusive author, Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), who writes about exotic places but due to personal circumstances, cannot go to those places herself. Her books’ cover model, Alan (Channing Tatum), is handsome but a little vapid. The running joke throughout is that he truly believes he is the books’ main character, Dash, and this is played to great effect. While on their book tour, Loretta gets kidnapped by a billionaire, aptly named Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe), so that she can help him find the ancient city’s lost treasure. Alan is determined to prove he is a real hero, runs off to rescue her and the adventure you would expect ensues.
There is nothing profound about this movie and it certainly does nothing new with the romantic comedy or action genre. But it fulfills all the typical tropes, including a fun cameo from Brad Pitt, who plays the kind of swashbuckling hero that Loretta would pen – and the kind of hero that Alan desires to be. Incidentally, all the characters appropriately have only a first name, such as you typically get in a trashy romance book. The conflict between the two main characters is similar to other adventure movies, such as Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone. And indeed, the best scenes are between the dumb hunk vs. the nerdy but beautiful woman. The chemistry between Bullock and Tatum is palpable and they are clearly having so much fun, it’s hard not to like a movie that is otherwise pretty forgettable.
Both these films showcase Channing Tatum’s clear charisma and talent. Yes, he’s easy on the eyes to be sure, but he really is worth watching.
Dog is rated PG-13 with a run time of 1h 41m
The Lost City is rated R with a run time of 2h 23m
