Sox: A Family’s Best Friend (2013)

Directed by Jason Horton

Viewed on Amazon Prime

 

Summary: A family having trouble getting along gets a little help(?) from a new dog who just happens to be telepathic. But this dog has problems of his own as a Federal Bureau of Dog Investigation agent is trying to track him down!

 

Is This A Thing?

So it seems that I have found myself a bizarrely specific niche of movies that I enjoy (?) watching and discussing. I was so completely baffled when I saw the first “A Doggone…” movie that I just had to keep exploring this strange, and relatively new, subgenre of dog based fiction. Part of what makes this so personally interesting is that the idea of a dog who has telepathic powers and essentially the mind of a human can get a little creepy especially when…well…we’ll get into that a little later.  Ah well, someone has to talk about telepathic dog movies, and if not me, then who?

The Paragraph Wherein I Explain The Difference Between A Rake And A Broom.

Our story begins, after the lengthy opening credits sequence, with the young boy Jesse and his mother, Christina, doing some yard-work outside in preparation of the arrival of Christina’s new husband, Thomas, and his son, Liam. Christina is diligently working while Jesse pretends to be a superhero fighting off alien invaders. Full disclosure, it’s kind of cute. But then the cold hand of reality dashes his dreams as Christina reminds Jesse that he needs to help her rake the leaves and not fight the alien menace. After a brief bit of exposition explaining that this is a new house and they are waiting for Christina’s husband to arrive, Jesse eventually goes to help his mother. Jesse’s reluctance to rake is easily explained though, as only Christina is actually using a rake. Jesse has a broom. I do not know why Jesse has a broom, as they are raking leaves and when Jesse starts trying to rake with his broom he makes no progress. Because you need a rake to rake. Jesse’s bristled broom is all but useless as Christina dominates every leaf in sight with her tactically superior metallic yard care implement.

 

A Hero Emerges!

We quickly cut to the other half of this soon to be family, Liam and his father Thomas, driving to the house to meet Christina and Jesse. While driving they have a delightfully cliche discussion about how Liam doesn’t want to move and Christina won’t be his new mom, very standard newly married parent angst. They arrive and Liam interacts robotically with Christina until they enter the new house and Liam’s world crumbles after he is told that he will have to share a room with Jesse. Then, just as it seems the darkness is overtaking the movie, a ray of hope appears. The doorbell rings and lo and behold it is a neighbor wanting to introduce herself, the one and only Paula Preston. Paula Preston speaks almost exclusively in alliterative P-based sentences, wears a purple ensemble and has brought pecan pie as a housewarming present. Paula Preston is the best character in the movie. Besides being the only person in the movie who comes remotely close to being funny, she thoughtfully welcomes our family to the neighborhood with a pecan pie, objectively the best kind of pie, and just seems like a warm new friend to everyone there. How does our family respond to this? Why, they laugh at her eccentricities and make fun of her to her face. What a likeable bunch!

 

Also a dog arrives, I guess.

Unfortunately Paula Preston leaves the film and Thomas’ brother, Uncle Nicky, arrives with a surprise for the kids. Everyone waits with bated breath as to what this surprise could be when it is revealed that Nicky brought over a new dog in the hopes that this will create a bond between the kids. Nicky’s plan instantly backfires as the boys begin to argue over nothing, in a scene that is as realistic as it is soul crushingly boring. But don’t worry, we aren’t sticking around there for long as we cut to a completely different scene in a different location with different characters. In some undisclosed location two hippies are being interrogated by a government agent and a dogcatcher. The agent introduces himself as representing the Federal Bureau of Dog Investigations and claims that he is pursuing the FBDI’s most wanted dog fugitive. Are there that many dog crimes in this world that the FBI needed to make an entirely new branch of the organization to cover them? Or was this bureau created solely so that Dognald Trump could angrily bark at them? Anyway, this agent, Dale Hooger, asks these two hippies questions about the dog that the boys have just been given but the hippies are too stoned to answer anything intelligibly. They never say those exact words because the movie is rated TV-Y7, but that is pretty clearly the implication. Hooger and his associate get nothing out of the pair so they end the interview, just in time for us to cut back to our lovely family.

 

Marital Communication Issues

The kids love this dog and everyone is happy! Except Christina, who was shockingly not consulted by Thomas before Thomas decided the kids could use a dog. Christina has a quiet and reasonable conversation with Thomas in the corner of the room about the new pup where Thomas tells Christina how much the kids like the dog but that if she doesn’t think they should keep him then he will back her up and tell the boys that. Nice one, Thomas. As Thomas emotionally blackmails Christina, Liam is disturbed by their, “Fighting,” which is a funny way to describe two adults having an even-toned discussion about a big life decision but he’s a kid so whatever. Liam is so shocked by this that he tells this dog that he wishes they would, “stop fighting.”  Christina caves to Thomas and then a very strange discussion happens where Thomas and Christina ask Nicky, who brought the dog over, where he found the dog and Nicky says that, “he just appeared in my house.” It is genuinely kind of creepy and feels really out of place given the tone they’re going for. But don’t worry, the dog breaks the ice by coming over and pissing on Christina’s shoes. When you look into her eyes you can already see her start to regret this marriage.

 

Marital Communication Issues Con’t

As Christina tries to wash the shame and dog piss off, Thomas sits in the other room, laughing heartily to himself about his wife’s humiliation. They have a brief serious discussion about how he really should have talked to her before making a big decision like this that affects the whole family. He agrees. Oh and then he remembers he has to leave town for a week. Right after giving the family a dog to take care of. What a swell guy. If he really has to leave, then why not just bring the dog with him when he comes back as a surprise? Maybe take some time that week to talk to his wife about whether or not they should get a dog? NOPE. This is the correct order for things to happen in so we can have a movie. So Christina is a little upset by this but Thomas reminds her that he told her he might have to leave this week, offscreen I suppose, and that this is very important for the family counseling center he just opened up in L.A.. Christina accepts that Thomas has to leave and we quickly cut to more wonderful filler involving the FBDI.

 

Dale Hooger Debases Himself For No One’s Amusement

A huge portion of this movie’s runtime is just filler scenes in which Hooger and his dog catcher partner, Howie, the only black person to appear in this film, attempt to track down the dog, now named Sox, who has been eluding Hooger for years. Hooger’s actor tries hard to be wacky as he is proclaiming that he will find this dog by thinking like a dog and sniffing the air and engaging in pratfalls but it just comes across as desperate to get any kind of laughs out of this character. The true horror comes during one fateful attempt. Hooger walks up to a woman walking her dog and with no warning or permission, gets on the ground and gently lifts up the dog’s tails so he can smell its butt. This happens. It has been captured on film. I don’t know how much this actor was paid to do this, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

 

The World’s Worst Frisbee Throws

So while Hooger sniffs dog ass somewhere else in the city, Jesse plays in his backyard. He attempts to bond with Sox by tossing frisbees around and telling Sox to fetch them. Amusingly,  these are some of the limpest frisbee tosses I have ever seen. This disc gets maybe two feet before it just crashes into the ground. And I’m still trying to figure out why this is in the movie like that. No one is that bad at throwing a frisbee so it has to be an intentional failure at a simple task. Maybe having the camera follow a thrown frisbee across the yard would be too much of an action shot for them to handle? Anyway, Jesse keeps tossing the frisbee to Sox, in the vain hope that someone in this house will positively interact with him, and something unsettling happens. The camera angle switches over to a POV shot from Sox’s perspective and the frisbee seemingly levitates and then gets flung at Jesse’s face. To follow up this frisbee assault, Sox tells Jesse telepathically that he doesn’t “Do Fetch.” Because he is a very cool dog, you see, who don’t need no human. Sox then gives Jesse a long winded explanation of why he only talks to kids, and during this explanation he references a bunch of weird things, like Alf and Twilight. Side note, he describes “that buff guy from Twilight”, Taylor Lautner, as looking like an Ewok. I have no idea why this description was used, but that sounds like the weirdest racial slur I have ever heard.

 

Don’t Tell Your Parents!

During this series of odd references, Sox tells Jesse that he can’t tell his parents about him being a talking dog, because adults don’t react well to learning this sort of thing. Kids, if a strange Person/Dog/Living Creature tells you not to talk to your parents about them then you should IMMEDIATELY TALK TO YOUR PARENTS ABOUT THEM. And this scene is where the movie starts going down a strange road with a big tonal shift. Jesse is pretty cool with Sox being a talking dog and quickly confides in him that he hates the dinner that his mom is currently making, roast, and wishes that they had pizza instead. That is such a weird choice for me to think about, they had to pick a meal that kids don’t like and instead of the traditional meals like liver and onions or meatloaf or brussels sprouts they picked roast? Maybe the kid is a vegetarian. So once Sox learns that Jesse hates roast he hatches a cunning plan and tells Jesse not to worry about that roast anymore.

 

The Cunning Plans of Telepathic Dogs

So Thomas says goodbye to his family that he happily abandons after seeing them for 1 day and then tragedy strikes. Sox somehow gets into the house undetected and uses his awesome powers to steal the family dinner and lead Christina on a chase throughout the house for a full minute of screentime. At least I think it’s the family dinner, the hunk of ‘meat’ that Sox carries around looks more like a chew toy than something from a roast. Both kids cheer Sox on as he runs with the food because….I guess no one in this house likes roast? That still confuses me, I just never thought of roasts as a controversial food. Upon seeing that the dog he got for the family is wrecking dinner and making his wife angry, Thomas quickly gets out of dodge, leaving Christina to clean up the mess and discipline the dog and…you know, be a parent. Sox is thrown out of the house and Liam goes out to comfort him. Christina comes out a tries to talk to Liam about how important it is to discipline dogs when they do bad things like wreck meals that it took all day to cook, but it is to no avail, for mere moments before Christina arrived Sox sunk his telepathic hooks into Liam. Liam knows that having a telepathic dog is cooler than having a step-mom, so he knows which side he is taking in this dispute.

 

Sometimes You Just Want To Punch A Kid In The Teeth

Now that Sox has revealed his telepathic gifts to both boys, it is time for them to get some much needed sleep. After Jesse and Liam get their pajamas on Jesse attempts to bond with Liam by telling him that he likes Liam’s dad, Thomas, and by inviting Liam to play pretend with him in his room. Liam responds with breathtaking cruelty, telling Jesse that Thomas doesn’t like him, calling Jesse a baby who plays stupid games, claiming that Sox is only his dog and not Jesse’s and kicking him out of his room with the justification that he is bigger and he can do that. Jesse’s reaction to this is incredibly even tempered, he just leaves while being mildly disappointed with Liam’s words. Jeez man, Jesse is a tough kid. Or maybe he’s just been given bad direction…anyway, Liam is about to go to sleep when Sox appears in the room, him having broken into the house somehow. Sox gives Liam some confusing advice about forgiveness and not caring that Jesse is annoying, which is weird because Jesse really hasn’t done anything negative to Liam but whatever, and then the ultimate revelation of the movie happens. This reveal is half the reason that I am even writing this right now so brace yourselves. Sox relates a story about a friend of his to convince Liam that he should give Jesse another chance. This friend of his was a long haired carpenter. Who was really kind and smart. Who had 12 dudes that followed him around who were called disciples, and his friend went around fixing their messes. Sox knew this guy and was friends with him. Sox is not just a telepathic dog. Sox is an IMMORTAL TELEPATHIC DOG WHO WAS FRIENDS WITH JESUS. I take back everything I’ve said, this is the best movie ever!

 

Wait, Why Is This A Jesus Movie?

So now the question has probably been asked as to WHY Sox is an immortal telepathic dog who knew Jesus. Well, the answer to that one is a bit roundabout, I didn’t mention this before but the movie is ‘presented’ by Core Faith Media, a group that I believe is a distributor, but shockingly, I can find almost no information about them online. I was able to find the website for the production studio, Vision, who dabble in religious films. What is strange about that though is that on this website Sox is not listed as a religious film, even though it has the descriptions of Jesus and one other scene later in the movie that has the kids praying but we’ll get to that later. I guess they were trying to bridge the divide between religious films and children’s movies involving telepathic dogs? Maybe they originally weren’t going to make this a religious film but decided to add a few elements when they partnered with Core Faith Media? This doesn’t really matter but the sudden turn was just so baffling that I had to expand on it a bit. The bottom line is that Sox tells Liam about Jesus and Liam really takes it to heart.

 

Montages Fix Everything!

This discussion is followed by an out of place montage where things that could be scenes, like the kids playing with Sox in the house and the FBDI people placing wanted posters for Sox around town only to have him tear them down and horseplay resulting in the breaking of one of Liam’s model cars. All this happens during a montage because even the editor was getting bored with how slowly paced the movie had been until this point. So once the montage ends we pick back up with Jesse and Christina trying to fix Liam’s model car that was broken and suddenly Liam is totally fine with Christina and Jesse and isn’t mean to them anymore. That is the power of a good montage. So it looks like the character arcs are resolved and the movie is wrapping up, great, let me just check the clock to make sure that we’re…only…halfway…through. Oh no. Well, you know what this means!

 

FILLER.

TIME FOR SOME FILLER, FOLKS, CAUSE WE GOTTA GET THIS TO FEATURE LENGTH SOMEHOW. We find ourselves back with the FBDI agent and Howie so we can witness a shockingly unfunny scene where the FBDI agent makes fun of Howie because Howie reads romance novels, only for the agent to reveal that he too reads romance novels! Oh, my sides! This discussion is interrupted by the return of the best character in the movie, Paula Preston, who the FBDI agent spots and instructs Howie that he must ask her if she knows anything about this suspicious dog. Howie approaches Paula and when their eyes lock it is love at first sight for them both! Time slows down, cartoon hearts pop up on the screen and light romantic music starts playing. I could make a joke about black guys being into fat white women but I think we’re all better than that so let’s just move on. Paula continues to be the only genuinely funny person here and there is some slight comedy to be gained from her interactions with Howie. Back home we also have…filler…scenes of the kids getting along and playing together or whatever, it’s supposed to be sweet but it’s in service of nothing because so far there really isn’t a plot. Any plot we had about these kids not getting along and everyone growing as a family is mostly done.

 

THIRD ACT DRAMA.

So someone on the production team remembered that at the end of the second act, there must be some drama, so during breakfast one day Christina learns that Sox has been in the house, which she has specifically forbidden! (Except those times in the montage where he was in the house and everyone knew but ignore that) Both boys say they have no idea how Sox got into the house but can’t tell Christina about his magical abilities, although I am not sure how telepathy would allow him to open a locked door, so of course Christina thinks one of them let Sox in and tells them that Sox is not to be let into the house again. The boys, particularly Liam, take umbrage with her statement and now everyone is mad at Christina again. Yay. Just as things look grim, everyone’s favorite neighbor Paula Preston emerges carrying a large bowl of her famous plum pudding! The day is saved! The boys mock Paula in the background, thanks for setting a good example Thomas, and Christina talks with her about rescheduling the meetup until Sox bounds in and attacks Paula’s pudding, knocking the bowl backward and spraying plum pudding all over her face. Paula is reasonably upset by what has happened and leaves in a huff, completely dropping her P-Based language.

 

SOX, MASTER OF MANIPULATION.

Christina takes Sox back outside to his doghouse because of course she would in this situation and then of course everyone is mad at Christina because she is trying to discipline this damn dog and there has to be conflict to resolve at this point in the story so here we are. Unbeknownst to our heroes though, Paula Preston has called Howie and told him that Sox closely resembles the dog that he is looking for, so Howie and his FBDI counterpart sneak into the bushes to spy on Sox, determining that he is the dog they’ve been looking for. Howie convinces the agent to give the family one more night with their dog before they abduct him and the agent agrees…shortly after this though Howie leaves and Dale stuffs Sox into a sack before fleeing the scene of this dognapping! The kids awake the next morning and find Sox to be missing, so naturally they blame Christina for getting rid of Sox. This isn’t really unexpected as Sox has been turning these kids against this woman for the entire movie, that dick. Sox is gone, all hope is lost until suddenly, help comes in the most unexpected for. Howie comes to the Levy family and comes clean about everything that’s been going on. During this discussion Howie realizes that, to the shock of no one, the FBDI doesn’t actually exist and Dale was just trying to capture Sox for his own reasons! As this is happening though, Dale is alone with Sox, and the interrogation has already begun to commence.

 

TALK, YOU ANIMAL!

Dale, whose obsession with Sox has been steadily growing throughout the movie, finally has Sox right where he wants him, on an easily escapable chair in a building that he could also easily get out of. But he hasn’t left yet because…reasons. Because we need some time for Dale to monologue and reveal his tragic backstory. As a child Dale had no friends, much to the shock of no one, except for his beloved pet dog. This dog was his faithful companion and Dale just couldn’t deal with the trauma of having his only friend die on him, so he set out to find a dog that would never die, an immortal and telepathic dog that would be his friend forever and never leave him. Dale doesn’t immediately say this though, not until Sox uses his mind powers to ASSAULT DALE’S MIND WITH TELEPATHIC ATTACKS UNTIL HE ADMITS ALL THIS. And I gotta be honest here, as weird and creepy Dale has been through the movie, I kind of get where the character is coming from. There’s this instantly recognizable bit of unhealed childhood trauma that everyone who had a pet die on them when they were a kid can relate to. Most people can learn important life lessons at this point and move on with an appreciation for what we still have or what we could have in the future. But Dale couldn’t or wouldn’t do that and I found this characterization surprisingly interesting. At this point I was kind of thinking that they’d do another twist and have the movie resolve peacefully, with Sox talking Dale down and convincing the agent to bring him back to the family. Maybe Dale could finally learn that this isn’t the way to make friends and that he needs to let go of everything that’s been consuming his life, maybe see a therapist and try to form real bonds with people who would enjoy his company. Yeah, that would be heartwarming and thematically appropriate by fitting in with the previously established themes of forgiveness and brotherhood. Or at least that would have happened if Sox didn’t immediately trick Dale and then hit him in the head with a frying pan, leaving him tied up for the police. Thank god no one learned any lessons from this movie! The movie ends with everyone back at home, amused at how Sox can talk and eating breakfast together. How charming.

 

Dang Dog Drama

 

Sox: A Family’s Best Friend is not only bad, it’s really poorly named. For the majority of the movie Sox did nothing but drive a wedge between the children and Christina for no real reason, so much so that it seemed like this was part of some bizarre plot he had. There were scenes that made sense in a normal dog movie, like when Paula comes over with the pudding and the poorly trained dog gets excited and knocks over the bowl, but that only makes sense if the dog can’t think. Sox could. Why did he attack Paula? Why isolate Christina socially and turn her own kids against her? It is genuinely really creepy and it completely undermines every ‘positive’ message the movie has. On top of that it is just painfully unfunny with Sox constantly making groan inducing quips and barring the reveal of Sox as an immortal dog who was friends with Jesus, there is nothing notable or interesting to keep you invested. The only good thing about this one is that it still isn’t as bad as Dude, Where’s My Dog? Because at least there actually is a dog in most of the movie. Please don’t watch this.