My step-father is every bit the film buff I am not; there are literally crates upon crates of VHS cassettes, DVDs, and Laserdiscs (remember those? They were DVDs before DVDs became viable!) of films I have never seen or even heard of.
Anyways, today's feature was mentioned by my step-dad and voted on by my mother, outvoting my suggestion 2:1; a movie called 'Red Dog'. Never heard of it? Then odds are, you're not Australian, like my step-father. (Yeah, he married my mother and moved from Australia to Canada... he's probably as crazy as I am)
Red Dog (aka Tally Ho, aka The Dog of the Northwest, aka The Pilbara Wanderer, et cetera) is a legend in Australia, particularly in the Pilbara region of the Northern Australia province, and is associated with the Hamersley Iron company and the mining town of Dampier. The movie would probably be emblazoned with those famous words 'Based on a True Story!' if not for the fact that, well... nobody's actually that sure how much of Red Dog's story is true. There are some events that can be verified, and that is what the majority of this film is about.
Spoilers Beyond The Jump
The story opens on a long stretch of highway in Australia (which is to say, any highway at all) After the Dragon Emperor bombed at the box office, Alex O'Connell has fallen on hard times and resorted to driving a truck for a living. Since the opening credits music is running out, he decides to pull over at a motel for the night. Since nobody's at the desk, he goes next door to the pub because... well cause the sign said so.
"As if I need an excuse to drink my pain away..."
Inside, he sees five guys arguing in the back, one of them waving a gun. Having more balls than sense, as usual, O'Connell runs into the back to pick a fight with four guys and a gunman... only to find it's four of the locals and the sheriff, holding down a dog to put him down.
"That guy got me on the ground and he tried to fuck me!"
We haven't been told yet, but this is Red Dog (as if you couldn't tell) and he's sick. Apparently he's been poisoned with strychnine, though the locals don't know by whom or why. But, since it's a dog and not a person, O'Connell decides its not worth getting involved, and goes to the bar to get a drink. Inspired by O'Connell's brand of cowardice, the sheriff decides he can't shoot the dog after all, cuz they was friends. Because letting the dog asphyxiate to death is so much kinder than a quick shot to the head, after all! Seriously, fuck this guy; but then, the dog seems to be coping with the strychnine poisoning pretty well... Goddamnit movie, you're making it hard to decide who I'm supposed to be angry at!
Anyways, the bar and the attached motel are run by Earl Hickey, who must've finally gotten around to finishing that list and moving to the one place on earth he could fit in. He tells the majority of Red Dog's story through flashbacks as he serves O'Connell the stockpile of Foster's beer he can't seem to ever get rid of. (He's an American; he won't know it's not real beer.) The flashback shows Earl in his car, moving out to Dampier, only to be stopped by the hitch-hiking Red Dog, sitting in the middle of the road... well, insofar as you can call it a road. And before you can say 'cheeky bastard', the dog hops on board, fine as you please.
♫ Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down,
Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on. ♪
Get used to that expression on their faces, by the way; 'dog farts' are a recurring joke in this movie. Classy way to treat a cultural icon, don't you think? Anyway, back in the present, we're introduced to Danno, this movie's designated Italian stereotype. His defining character trait is that he cannot shut up about his home town in Italy. Literally, that's all I can remember about him, except that he kinda sorta looks like a skinny Ron Jeremy.
Ew.
Anyways he gives a speech about his fellow miners, how they come from all over the world to work for the company, and how working in the hot sun has baked the brains out of each of them. He even manages to tell a story for the sole purpose of putting an explosion in the movie:
Michael Bay demographic -- Secured
Anyways, like I said before, Italian Ron Jeremy goes on and on about 'Abruzzi', or whatever; his home town that sounds like the bloody Garden of Eden, the way he talks about it. To be fair though, just as it gets to be really irritating, the movie does go to the point of having every other miner in the camp band together against him and threaten to cut his throat if he ever brings it up again. So, does Italian Ron Jeremy do the sensible thing and stop talking about it?
No, of course not. He subjects the dog to his endless tales of his wonderful home town, filled with flowers like Turkish carpet and large-breasted women shaped like a nut. Yeeah he said that; don't ask me either, I don't really get it. I can only assume he means 'shaped like a peanut', which I guess means he's referring to the so-called 'hourglass figure', but... oh like I care about his fucking peanut women, let's move on.
This is essentially the first 15-30 minutes of the movie; mentioning how Red Dog systematically befriends every miner in the camp, one after the other. Which is weird that they let the dog onto the mining site; no work-site I've ever been on would allow such a thing. Hell, they won't even let people onto the site without paperwork, or at least a phonecall from the boss... But then, they did induct the dog into their union...
"Affordable veterinary care for everyone!"
According to what I read (in five minutes of Google and Wikipedia searching) this actually happened. Not only that, Red Dog was a member of the Sports Team and Social Club, as well as having his own goddamn bank account. And I think my mother dotes on her dog too much...
Anyways, wacky hi-jinks ensue when Red meets John, a bus driver for the mining company that drives the workers on and off-site. Through a montage of silliness, culminating in the miners betting on what Red Dog will eat and how fast, up to a live chicken. A live chicken?! Really, you asshole? I mean, I love chicken as much as the next guy, but that's fucking horrid! Thankfully John, the closest-looking thing to Matthew McConaughey since... well, Matthew McConaughey, steps in to put a stop to the business and becomes friends with the dog. D'awww, I hope nothing horrifically tragic happens to sunder this beautiful friendship...
Back in the present again, Italian Ron Jeremy makes a big deal out of Not-McConaughey being Red's 'master', and how the dog eventually brought him and the hacker chick from Transformers together. There's a dating interlude where Not-McConaughey and the hacker chick reluctantly fall in love, despite him being a mysterious drifter with no real discernible traits beyond his character trope. Meanwhile the dog acts all jealous and clingy; hi-jinks ensue, including another dog-fart joke. (Yeah, you can tell I'm a fan of romantic subplots, can't you?) More importantly, during the romantic interlude, Not-McConaughey takes the hacker chick to a drive-in showing of Jaws (Oh, the movie takes place in the late 70s by the way; yeah, had to figure that out on my own) and mentions the existence of 'Lord Nelson', a giant-ass shark that lives in the harbor outside Dampier.
Wait, if Not-McConaughey is a self-described drifter, how does he know about the local legend of Lord Nelson? I mean, one could assume that the miners told him about it on the bus, either to or from Dampier, but we never actually see that. It would be nice for that to have been explained; a minor point, I know, but it's little things like this that tend to irritate me.
Anyways, later in the same story, Red Dog gets shot by Mr. Cribbage, the caretaker of the mining camp's trailer park. We only know this because Italian Ron Jeremy says he hates dogs, and that he (and everyone else with a gun) went to go hunt Lord Nelson in the harbor after one of the miners got his leg nearly bit off. This leads to the dog getting better, and more wacky hi-jinks with Italian Ron Jeremy. There's even a cliche violin sting as he sees her for the first time... Anyways, we get another montage as he keeps trying to pick up the vet's assistant, using Red Dog as an excuse to keep showing up. In the woman's defense... he looks like fucking Ron Jeremy! I'm bisexual, and I wouldn't fuck that with a stolen dick! But it's his own incompetence, and not his creepy porn-stache that keeps them from hooking up, surprisingly enough.
Jump back to the present and... oh fuck me, she actually married him? Well, there's no accounting for taste, I suppose. He buys a round of drinks for the growing crowd of Red-Dog-Well-Wishers in the bar, as the story shifts to our designated 'brooding stranger' achetype, Jocko. (Again with the O syllable...) He played Raymus Antilles in Star Wars Episode III! I could make some kind of snide remark here, but, c'mon... Episode III? The guy's been through enough.
Flashback again (For those of you playing the drinking game I just made up, take a shot) to Jocko at the bar... still. He's trying to drink away the memory of his wife and daughter, which he lost in a car accident. Deciding that he has to actually do something to warrant being in this story, Jocko decides it'd be a fine idea to wade out into the harbor and let Lord Nelson fucking eat him to death. Look, I know you've been through a tragedy and all; I know that you're hurting, but... death by shark devouring!? There's faster, easier, and less painful ways of punching your own ticket, dude! Are you going for like, the Saxton Hale Badass-of-the-Year award or something? Trying to get your name in the local paper that all of fifty people will read?
But, sensing that srs bzns is afoot, Red Dog does what Red Dog does best: wacky hi-jinks! He steals a steak off the barby (Sorry, couldn't resist) and runs out into the harbor where Jocko watches. And Jocko actually laughs for the first time in years. And wouldn't you know it, just as he decides life is worth living again, the fucking shark shows up. He takes the steak from Red Dog and throws it further out to sea, and, I'm not kidding, it draws the shark away. I mean, I suppose it could work, what with that whole 'sharks can smell tiny drops of blood from miles away and it causes them to go into a frenzy' kind of thing, but the whole business still seems kind of suspect in my mind.
Back in the present, O'Connell has to use the Ladies room. Oh, not because he's a pussy; the 'Gents' room is out of order. After awkwardly bumping into the hacker chick, he asks Italian Ron Jeremy what happened to Not-McConaughey, (Getting confused yet?) and the room goes dead quiet. I assumed it was because she woke up one morning and realized she was sleeping with the guy responsible for 'Fool's Gold'.
But no, it turns out the day after making a touching speech about how much he loves hacker chick at a giant barbecue party, he hits a kangaroo on the highway and dies. I would care more, except neither of these characters had any traits that made them particularly memorable to me. He was a lonely drifter and she was a girl in love with a lonely drifter... the tragedy of the event is kind of hollow to me.
Anyway, this is the part where we get to why Red Dog is famous... an hour into the movie. See, the dog waited at Not-McConaughey's house for three weeks solid, expecting him to come home (or so Jocko tells us) After three weeks of that, Red Dog decides "Fuck this for a laugh" and takes off to travel all over town. When that doesn't work, he hitch-hikes all up and down the coast of Australia, as far north as Darwin, and as far south as Perth. Seriously, this travel montage goes on for like, ten minutes or so. But, almost as soon as that story is started, it's over. Red Dog just... comes back, all on his own, after a year.
You'd think that's the end of the movie right? Nope, we still got twenty minutes or so to fill out. Red Dog stays in hacker chick's RV (sorry, 'caravan') for the remainder of the movie, but mean Mr. Cribbage the caretaker ain't gonna have none of that! He threatens to evict her, and then threatens to have the dog put down, stating that there is no 'community' of Dampier; only a band of stupid, drunken miners.
It's at this point I have to mention that this is a really fucking stupid thing to do. You live in a town filled with bored, burly miners. The town also happens to love this dog to fucking bits, every single last one of them... except you. Do you really think that insulting them and threatening harm against the dog is a good idea? And as quick as you can say 'epic fail', hacker chick rallies the townfolk and miners, and shows up on Cribbage's doorstep the very next day. I especially love the sheriff, who deliberately fucks off to maintain his plausible deniability.
"Oh would you look at the time: half past stupid. Lemme know how it turns out!"
And, as I'm sure you can imagine, the Cribbages run off, leaving nothing but a trail of urine in their wake. They pissed off so fat, in fact, that they left the true evil presence of Dampier behind: Red Cat. You know what's coming next: the big dramatic show-down between Jesus Dog and Satan's Housepet! This is such a big deal to the miners that they all show up to see it... but aren't above placing bets on who the winner will be. And when the fight finally happens, well...
Not pictured: Yakety Sax
No really, this is the goofiest fucking fight I've seen in a long time. And this coming from a guy who's friend earned the name 'Lunchbox' because somebody literally punched a sandwich out of him! Now, I know you can't have the animals actually fight for real; the SPCA and various animal rights groups would be up in arms for it, not to mention being all-around heinous. But even still, the CGI'd Big Ball o' Violence careening off of everything in the trailer park is so stupid as to be hilarious.
Anyways, Red Dog chases the demonpuss until nightfall, even so far as to wait at the foot of a tree for the cat to come down and... like so many things this dog does, a miracle occurs. The cat and dog become bestest friends. D'aww, that's so sweet I think my pancreas just died. Seriously, animals don't work like this, and unlike the Union thing, I found no story about 'Red Cat' or this remarkable story of enemies becoming friends. This is just goofy filler, as far as I can tell.
After all that, we find out why O'Connell has come to town in the present: to deliver a monument inaugurating the founding of the town of Dampier officially. (Yeah apparently it's not an official 'town' up until this point, or something... I dunno.) Jocko jumps up on the table and, in true bogan fashion, begins to piss on the British. Particularly the explorer after which the town was named, who sailed into the harbor, had a piss, a scratch, and a look around, and then fucked off again. He proposes that the town erect a statue of Red Dog in its place, despite the fact the other statue is already bought and paid for. The crowd in the bar agrees and a big celebration is had to the tune of James Reyne's 'Way Out West'.
But what about Red Dog!? Well, in the midst of the party, Red Dog gets up and just walks out, with not a single solitary person in the whole bar noticing him. When the vet tells the crowd 'He's gone', the usual schmuck response ensues, before he elaborates that the dog is gone gone, as in got up and left. They spend the rest of the night and most of the next day looking for him, until they discover him that afternoon.
Red Dog went to the Dampier graveyard, laid down in front of John's (Not-McConaughy's) grave, and just... died. Now, I've been ragging on this movie up until this point because, well, I like pointing out things that bug me or I think are funny, but I will not lie to you: this part made me weep like a small child, and I'm not sure I can explain why. I didn't much like the John character, or most of the characters in this movie, but the image of the town standing around the graveyard with Red Dog dying alongside his former master's grave was all a bit too much for me to bear. But then, this imagery was designed by people more clever and successful than me to provoke exactly that kind of response...
That's pretty much where the movie ends, as you'd probably expect. There's a bit of a wind-down where O'Connell comes back with a new dog-that-is-red, which is implied to be adopted by the town as Red Dog the Second, and they reveal the statue of Red Dog the First, which actually exists and is on the road into the real-life town of Dampier.
Final Thoughts: Pass, Retry, or Fail? -- Pass
Red Dog, for all of its goofiness, is actually a good movie. I enjoyed it, for all of the stupid, stock characters that make up its cast, and the back-and-forth flashback storytelling, it's still entertaining for me to watch. As anyone who knows me knows, the greatest sin a movie can commit is being boring. The 'Red Dog travelling' montage drags the movie on for ten minutes too long, and some of the more slapstick-y stuff I could have lived without, like Italian Ron Jeremy mackin' on the vet assistant, for example. But the good far, far outweighs the bad on this thing. A lot of people much smarter than me seemed to like it, seeing as how it won seven awards in Australia, including Best Feature Film and Best Box Office Achievement.
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