Review of Dog Eat Dog (2016) by Jesse O — 12 Jan 2017

Dog Eat Dog (2016).

Director:

Paul Schrader.

Writers:

Novel by Edward Bunker, Screenplay by Matthew Wilder.

The movie is beautiful. It is a beautiful world, even in Ohio. (Paul Schrader knows about these parts. Ain't he from the east midwest, RustBibleWTF Belt?).

Cleveland is beautiful, even with these vicious slapstick goons running around once again on the loose. Maybe on the loose forever which is a beautiful thing, in a way. . .but that would be telling.

Hey wait a minute. I really shouldn't be that way, I mean just calling them "vicious slapstick goons".

That's ugly talk.

These fellows are beautiful too. They are just out of touch, they've been locked up like animals so long, with a bunch of other fucking animals and their crappy music, that they are strangers in a strange land. Give them a fucking break.

Mad Dog (ol' Willem Dafoe), young Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook), and Troy (Nicolas Cage) were old associates in the slammer, now ex-con goons.

Shit, man, they're beautiful too.

Mad Dog is, well, crazy, but he's sincere and means no harm really, it's just that, well you know how people are, and he is beautiful. He's got one of those sinewy old man bodies, I mean he looks good, he's got good hair, but, that mustache, it kind of made me wonder about him, and I wasn't sure what he was driving at in that scene with Diesel.

Diesel has a beautifully shaped shaved head, and good brain inside, well, not exactly "good", but thoughtful for a big lug.

Troy, has a beautiful suit and somehow he came up with that beautiful Jag and some ideas about how they could make some beautiful dough, enough to retire in style on. I mean, what else are they gonna do, get jobs? Right!

Oh and El Greco (Paul Schrader) is not so beautiful, but gets extra credit for being the man behind the whole thing. Probably he came up with the Jag. (I liked the red Jaguar, I think I want one.).

Oh and that celebratory scene; rollin' in some hot fast dough and all doing blow in some cheap motel room, man, good blow, I'm seeing some colors, that's fucking beautiful!

Whatever happened to the baby? The baby was beautiful too. Well, whatever, this is a beautiful goon movie not a beautiful baby picture.

******.

Hapless lowlife criminals inhabit the work of Edward Bunker.

I first ran across him in the 1970s with the movie adaptation of Straight Time, with Dustin Hoffman as a doomed small time criminal. I read one of Bunker's novels too years ago (was it this one?). Good stuff. This movie has the same feel.

It's lovely to see an old master, Paul Schrader, return to form in such a spectacular way. This made The Canyons look like a film school project, or home movie.

This is instant classic Schrader that conformes and perhaps tops some of his best work.

So I say, without reservations, I mean if you don't mind a little rough stuff, head on out into a streaming service near you, sit up close and enjoy this beautifully shot and performed crime horror show by two of the masters of the genre.