Check under most any post relating to the recently released trailer for Luc Besson’s “Dogman,” and you’ll find one, if not several responses riffing, to various degrees of enthusiasm, on the theme of “Omg, what if ‘Joker’ but with dogs?” That rhetorical question can now be answered, following this numbskulled nonsense movie’s inexplicable Venice Competition premiere, with a resounding “If only.” The bludgeoningly obvious, creatively inert, deathly dull tale of a cross-dressing misfit in a wheelchair who favors canine company over that of humans, it is scarcely fit to lap from the same water bowl as Todd Phillips’ controversial Golden Lion winner. Even those who didn’t much like “Joker” have to admit that it did not actively treat its audience as if they were so brain-dead that everyone left feeling about 30 Iq points dumber than when they went in.
Much like Terrence Malick’s marginally more accomplished “The Tree of Life,...
Much like Terrence Malick’s marginally more accomplished “The Tree of Life,...
- 8/31/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
No animals were harmed in the making of Luc Besson’s new thriller, Dogman, but plenty of people get mauled, bitten, robbed and attacked, and one guy has his junk put into a serious vice grip, by a pack of extremely well-trained canines.
That being said, the director’s first film since his 2019 femme-driven assasin flick, Anna, is actually one of his least violent movies to date when it comes to bullets and bodies depicted on screen. If there’s violence, it’s predominantly of the domestic and psychological kind, in a story that follows a young man whose childhood traumas transform him into a very unusual sort of superhero: a paralyzed vigilante who dresses in drag, performs incredible lip-syncs of classic European ballads, and rules over a small, fierce army of obedient pups, as if the Joker and Ace Ventura were somehow merged into a single character. Also, he lives in New Jersey.
That being said, the director’s first film since his 2019 femme-driven assasin flick, Anna, is actually one of his least violent movies to date when it comes to bullets and bodies depicted on screen. If there’s violence, it’s predominantly of the domestic and psychological kind, in a story that follows a young man whose childhood traumas transform him into a very unusual sort of superhero: a paralyzed vigilante who dresses in drag, performs incredible lip-syncs of classic European ballads, and rules over a small, fierce army of obedient pups, as if the Joker and Ace Ventura were somehow merged into a single character. Also, he lives in New Jersey.
- 8/31/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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