Review from The Culture Shock
Written by Patrick Douglas, Friday, 08 July 2005
There’s not a whole lot of worse things you can do to a man than run over his dog. Steal his car, hammer his mailbox with a baseball bat, fire him from his job, anything. Just don’t mess with his companion.
That’s the premise of the independent film “Dead Dog,” and as silly as it seems at times, the rage expressed by the main character is something some dog owners can relate to.
Jeremy Sisto is Tom Braeburn, a somewhat high strung fellow living amongst the high rises of New York City with his fiancé Lainie. The two are very busy with Lainie climbing the ladder of success as a lawyer and Tom working at a radio station.
Things change when Lainie takes Tom’s dog for a walk by herself. Not paying close enough attention to the dog, Lainie becomes distracted and lets go of the leach. Soon enough the dog is in the street and gets hit by a car.
The driver of the car gets out to check the damage done to his vehicle, but takes off soon after without checking on the dog’s welfare.
The dog has to be put to sleep and understandably Tom isn’t happy about it.
What follows is a series of events so strange that it’s difficult to think they all started because of the death of a dog.
Tom holds a serious grudge against Lainie because of her negligence in taking care of the dog on their walk and the two are soon arguing about it.
Since the man who hit the dog is from the neighborhood, it doesn’t take long for Tom to discover his identity. He tracks the man down and decides to play a little game with him.
The man’s name is Marquett and knowing he will show up at a local newsstand, Tom decides to befriend him without mentioning word of the dog or its death.
Tom deceives Marquett into thinking that they are acquaintances from a Christmas party a few months back. Marquett falls for the trap and the two are soon out drinking at a strip club.
It’s not hard to figure out what Tom’s motives are, the hard part comes in trying to figure out what his intentions are, knowing that he hates Marquette.
What happens next is up for debate since there are so many different stories. From Tom’s point of view, he offers to drive the drunk Marquett home from the bar and ends up kicking him out of the moving car as revenge. Marquett claims he was run over by Tom.
Either way, Marquett doesn’t come out of the accident very well, and Tom finds himself in very deep trouble.
“Dead Dog” takes many different twists and turns along the way and all goes back to an incident where a dog innocently runs into the street.
I did find parts of this film obnoxious and pointless, but overall enjoyed it. There were times when I really questioned the direction the film was going in and then a surprise twist would keep me interested.
“Dead Dog” is one of those movies that won’t make you want to run out and buy it, but will give you an hour and a half of entertainment.
