Dog is a very earnest movie that’s a little let down by too much storytelling, not enough plot. It’s unfortunate since the movie is trying its hardest, doing a lot of heavy lifting, only to be dashed on the rocks that is my patience.

The flick stars Channing Tatum as a former soldier who agrees to escort an unmanageable war dog with PTSD to her former handler’s funeral. They bond on their road trip as wounded warriors… it just takes time to get through the dog’s psychic scars (and since Tatum played a dog/human hybrid in Jupiter Ascending, I’ll let you decide which dog has the scars).

I wanted to like this movie more, but it’s so full of stuff and stuff that it slowly lost me as it played out. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t some good emotional dog bonding going on… it’s just too sandwiched in between random but not very interesting events that occur on the way.

If nothing else, the flick honors soldiers and working dogs well. You can feel them trying very hard to make sure we know these two need help and they need each other. I enjoyed that it didn’t get too maudlin in the attempt. It’s a pretty square, straight-forward picture.

If they would have edited it down by twenty to thirty minutes, the movie would have worked better. But I also think that its earnestness and ability to draw tears out of people less grumpy than me might just sell it to you. Not a bad flick though… just an uneven one.

Score: 74