![]() In one of the movie’s most outlandish detours, Briggs is taken hostage by a paranoid farmer somewhere in Oregon-but that’s also how he discovers that Lulu, when treated with kindness, has a softer side. ![]() When he meets two tantric-sex specialists eager to get it on with him, Lulu’s loud barking-she’s locked in the truck outside-becomes the interruptus of any potential coitus. Early on in the duo’s road trip, she busts out of her crate, destroying the interior of Briggs’s truck. We watch as the inevitable happens: Briggs and Lulu learn to trust each other-it’s the thing both of them need. If you want soldiers to be portrayed as people rather than symbols-and we should always want that-Tatum is your guy. We don’t know what Briggs’s reasons were, but the point is that he’s lost without the community and sense of purpose he found in the Army. Men and women join the military for all sorts of reasons, and not necessarily because they like the idea of war. Dog isn’t openly political, but it’s definitely not overtly liberal. That’s a horrible reminder of Lulu’s past life, but a key truth entwined in it is that dogs don’t go to war of their own volition. In a scene that doesn’t end as badly as you fear, she escapes Briggs’s grip in the lobby of a fancy hotel and attacks a doctor, a Muslim, because he’s wearing a thobe. That’s the job humans have given her and groomed her for. And the opening credits, as well as broad hints dropped here and there throughout the film, let us know that she’s been trained to attack and kill. It’s dangerous to take her out in public, and she feels a constant need to run-even though she’s long been off-duty, she’s still susceptible to every combat trigger. She goes ballistic if her ears are touched even lightly. She’s so unpredictable that she’s doomed to wear a Bane-style leather muzzle most of the time. Lulu isn’t an easy dog to like, especially at first. Dog-which was written by Carolin and Brett Rodriguez-is largely a comedy, and only partly a tearjerker. How many times have we seen this story? But we’ve never seen Tatum play it. Briggs accepts the mission, partly because he needs something to do, but mostly to get back in the Amy’s good graces. She’s one of the Army’s lost causes, a casualty who has become a burden to them. Lulu suffers from PTSD her anxiety manifests itself in aggression, making her unadoptable and, presumably, unlovable. The soldier’s distraught parents want Lulu at his funeral in Arizona. One of his old Ranger buddies, formerly the handler of a K9 soldier-a Belgian malinois named Lulu-has died, a suicide. But finally, to shut him up if nothing else, they give him an assignment. He begs the higher-ups to send him out on the next rotation they keep refusing. But he has suffered a serious brain injury, and the Army wants nothing to do with him. He’s stuck making sandwiches somewhere in Montana and he’s dead broke, desperate to be redeployed. Tatum plays Briggs, an Army Ranger who feels completely lost when not on duty. Dog, which was co-directed by Tatum and Reid Carolin (writer of the enormously awesome Magic Mike movies), is one of those pictures that you think you have pinned down even before you see it-and in some ways, you probably do.
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