Review of Dog Eat Dog (2016) by Josh P — 27 Feb 2018

Having seen the other user reviews I would say Dog Eat Dog is a criminally underrated film. Having seen Dog Eat Dog I would say it's a film that certainly isn't for everyone.

Dog Eat Dog opens with a brilliant shot, as a gun advocate talks on TV about how you need a gun in case some lunatic drug addict breaks in the camera swings through a bizarrely pink apartment to show Willem Dafoe, a lunatic drug addict, watching intently. In the opening scene alone we are treated to some brilliantly distinct visuals, some over the top violence set to incredibly jaunty music and we are introduced to Mad Dog. You're told everything you need to know in this first scene. We are not supposed to 'like' these characters. And that's something you need to be okay with going in, you need to be okay with watching a film about reprehensible, pathetic and irredeemable people.

The first thing to touch on is the film's visuals. The visual tone of the movie shifts often, going from black and white, saturated colors. Some scenes are done in a very modern, hand held style whilst others hearken back to old school crime noir. Now there's a few ways you could reason the choice (maybe Paul Schrader is just a lunatic drug addict too) but after some consideration here is mine; the film follows three long time criminals and drug users. They are also losers, dangerous and unstable as they may be they are losers and I think they all see themselves in a certain light. Mad Dog views the world through a confused haze of psychosis and pharmaceuticals and Troy (Nicolas Cage) is obsessed with crime noir and likes to picture his life like one of those old movies. Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook) sees himself something of a NWA type gangsta, and the visual style of the movie flits between the perceptions they have built up around themselves. It doesn't always work but when it does we are offered a visual treat. The fuscia sequence and the black and white sequence near the beginning are both excellent. The film gives limited information about the lives of our characters but through some subtle visual storytelling it tells us what we need to know. (A scene where Cage and Schrader are discussing business, their faces at first seem oddly framed but look in the background).

With regards to the performances they are all stellar, in my opinion. Cage as Troy is actually very restrained (even though his final scenes are all done as very much on purpose Humphrey Bogart impressions) compared to Dafoe but still gives us an appropriate eccentricity we expect. Dafoe goes off the walls and fully commits to his unstable, overly emotional and motor mouthed Mad Dog, and astoundingly he offers a lot of the soul of the movie. Dafoe is committed here, he's as funny as he is frightening and as imposing as he is pathetic. And then we have Christopher Matthew Cook as Diesel, a bruiser with a brain. Cook's performance is probably the most understated, a stoic man's man prone to violent outbursts of anger. These three performances manage to be at once over the top, bubbling with a violent and desperate energy, while also being human. You don't like these guys, but you feel for them.

As for the story it's very straight forward, three dirty criminals and one last job that goes expectedly awry. Nothing new. What's new is the execution. This film is dark, nasty and many of the dark and nasty things in it would in other films be played for gasps and not laughs. But that's not the world of these men, these awful things aren't knew. In fact these awful things are old hat to them. The film, the dialogue, the story doesn't play by the rules. Characters will interrupt plot important dialogue to talk about carpeting, they will suddenly kill people who seem pivotal to the plot. Because that's the life of these bumbling and violent career criminals. This never becomes a story of redemption, or of honour among thieves and if it did it would have been all the worse for it. This is a nasty film about nasty people and the nasty things they fail to do and we all get to laugh at them.

This film isn't for everyone, but with committed and oddball performances, a surfeit of visual flair, sharp dialogue and a story so unpredictable and committed to what it's trying to say (as well as some unexpected but relevant social commentary) it's certainly worth a watch to anyone who loves a good anti-hero. In some ways it's a spiritual successor to Bad Lieutenant: PoCNO but, well, these guys are even worse. Plus it contains Nicolas Cage playing a guy doing a Humphrey Bogart impression for an entire, and rather dramatic, scene and he's not even the craziest part of it!

If what you've read hasn't put you off then Dog Eat Dog is something for you to chow down on.