Dog Days (2018)

Directed by: Ken Marino

Viewed in Theatre

 

Summary: People in California sometimes have dogs. And sometimes they don’t. And sometimes those dogs change their lives, especially if they do nothing interesting at any point in the story.

 

The Real Dog Days Of Summer Have Arrived

It had to happen sooner or later that a ‘Dog’ movie would come out in theater during this review series. As soon as I saw the poster for this movie at the theater, I knew that this was going to be a tough watch. This looked like a generic romantic comedy with dogs and I knew that were it not for this series, then I would have had zero interest in seeing this. But maybe, just maybe, this movie could surprise me. Maybe it could surpass its dog limitations and actually cross the line into good territory….but probably not.

Editing Saves The Day!

Dog Days is….kind of a movie. Strangely enough it feels like five movies awkwardly stitched together with their own characters and plotlines that are largely unrelated to each other. The movie plays out with all of these plots happening mostly at the same time with the edits constantly switching between stories in a desperate attempt to keep the viewer engaged. This somewhat works, not because the storylines are engaging, because they take stories that could feasibly be ideas for full movies and then just cut all of the filler out of them and just throw the most basic elements of the genre at the viewer.

 

They try to hide this with editing but two of the stories are variations on the romantic comedy, one is the classic ‘dog brings new family together’ story, another is the ‘old widower and young boy form bond together that transcends generation’ story, and the last is the ‘guy who doesn’t have a dog learns the joy of having a dog’ movie. It feels like no one in the writers’ room could agree what kind of story to have so they just compromised by doing everything.

 

Movie Plot Summaries

That’s not to say that these partial ideas are bad! A movie about a couple adopting a young girl and trying to form a familial bond with her over a new family pet is a fine idea for a sweet family comedy. I wouldn’t see that movie but I’m sure it’d be okay. And it’s the same for these others! News anchor lady has a bad break up and then meets her new co-host who she has romantic chemistry with; Smartass pizza guy has a contentious relationship with an old man he delivers to, but the two end up genuinely bonding after the old man’s dog runs away and the pizza guy helps look for her; Lady who works in a coffee-shop finds a dog and uses it to get close to a hot veterinarian but realises along the way that the owner of a local animal rescue charity would be a better boyfriend; Wild and spontaneous guy in a band takes care of his sister’s dog after she gives birth to twins and has no time to look after him, and he learns to love the dog. These could all be good movies, except the coffee-shop one which was awful and super cliche, but because there is no time spent developing any of the characters, they all fall flat.

 

Basic Romantic Comedy Story Structure

Isolating the first story from all the mixed edits around it, here is what it is:

 

News anchor lady meets guy  -> News lady breaks up with cheating BF -> Guy she met earlier becomes her co-host -> They bond over having dogs -> New guy is mean to old bf thus proving his manliness -> They get together officially. -> A stupid misunderstanding happens and they break up. -> They get together in the end because of an impassioned plea from news lady to guy.

 

Recipe for Romantic Comedy: Romance + Comedy

Now I’m not complaining that this is a romantic comedy! There are many romantic comedies that I enjoy.The reason they are enjoyable is because the story around two people getting in a romantic relationship is bolstered and supported by becoming deeply connected to the people involved in the romance. You learn about them, you feel for them, you genuinely root for them to succeed and become happier together as a couple than they were otherwise. When there are no scenes of character development, when just the bare bones of two people meeting and dating before some minor conflict happens that causes them to briefly break up before getting back together is presented, it has no substance.

 

The movie asks you to feel emotions for characters who aren’t real, and they are not real because they are fictitious, they are not real because they have no character traits, they have no hopes or dreams or likes or dislikes and they solely exist so that this tired plot can play out.

 

To sum this all up, romantic comedies are good when they are A) Funny and B) About people the audience cares about. Dog Days is painfully unfunny and so shallow that I can’t imagine that anyone who is really into romantic comedies would even find it satisfying because it is such a poor example of the genre. And this goes for the other romantic comedy segment too! Hell, that one is even worse. The other one, the one with the coffee shop worker lady, just boiled down to “don’t go after hot guys, ladies, because they might be narcissists, just go after the homely kind of creepy guy who thinks he’s your friend because he buys coffee from you!” Barf.

 

Looking On The Bright Side?

The best of these mini stories was definitely the one where the old man and young pizza guy went from getting on each other’s nerves to genuinely becoming friends. There was a bit more heart to this one, more character for both people involved and it definitely helped that Ron Cephas Jones was giving way more than this movie deserved, performance-wise.

 

That’s not to say that everyone else was bad though. Most people were just doing the best with the material they were given, but what they were given wasn’t very good so they couldn’t really elevate it. This cast is all giving 110% to try and make this movie work and I applaud their professionalism. But I wish they hadn’t. I wish they hadn’t because the only thing that could have saved this movie for me was if the performances were as bad as the writing so I would have at least been able to laugh at another poorly thought out and executed dog movie.

 

The Double Edged Sword of Pacing

I will give this movie one more point in its favor though, and that is that it has a brisk pace right up until the last 15 or 20 minutes. The five separate stories are chopped up and presented in such a way that the scenes go by incredibly quickly which is good in terms of keeping the pacing quick and avoiding any quiet or slow moments that would have probably happened otherwise. I commend the editor for taking the footage they had available and turning it into a two hour movie that generally doesn’t feel two hours long. I can only imagine how tough this would have been to sit through if it was two and a half hours or if even some of the scenes were given more time to breathe.

 

The only time this is a problem is at the end, where the movie has to end five different times to cap off each individual story. I wish I was keeping track because it felt like the last twenty minutes of the movie were finales and wrap ups. It also probably didn’t help that they edited out all the conflict, but hey, some sacrifices have to be made.

 

Dog Days Chases Its Tail

To finish this up, it’s not a terrible movie but that almost works against it. Dog Days is too competently edited and acted to be funny bad and it is too poorly written and shallow to be enjoyable as a romantic comedy. There is no real tension or stakes or conflict and that just makes everything that happens feel kind of pointless. Sure, there are tons of cute dogs, and boy are they cute, but that is nowhere near enough of a reason to justify seeing this movie in a theatre. If you want to see cute dogs you can go to YouTube and just watch hours of adorable dog videos for free without leaving the comfort of your home. Bottom line, just don’t see it. You have better things to do with your time. My only caveat for this is if you’re really old and your heart just can’t take watching any movie with conflict or excitement, then I would recommend this movie as a way to sit in an air conditioned room for a few hours, because that is the audience I saw this movie with.