Disappointing `Dogmen' is haphazardly planned
Tom Berenger stars as a broken-down bounty hunter with a dead wife whose father blames him for her death. When this bounty hunter is hired to track three escaped fugitives, he stumbles onto the title group of Cheyenne warriors.
Sensing that he's in over his head, good ol' boy Tom seeks out the anthropology professor (played by Barbara Hershey). After a modicum of coaxing and some weirdly uninvolving "romantic" scenes, they set out for the Ox-Bow region of northern Montana.
When they finally meet up with the Dogmen , they join with the tribe temporarily and are eventually (inevitably) accepted. The sheriff, meanwhile, out to avenge his daughter, hunts them down and forces the stars to save the natives any way they can.
While all this is going on, Wilford Brimley helps out writer/director Tab Murphy in a pointless and ultimately annoying narration which seems to bridge the gaps in characterization and logic Murphy is incapable of filling.
The stars don't embarrass themselves, and Berenger shows his dedication to his craft by actually putting Copenhagen snuff in his mouth. His role is actually a repeat performance of the outward bound Boy Scout he played in Shoot to Kill , but without the moderate tension of that film.
Hershey is quite capable as the genuinely smart professor and manages to get past Berenger's "it ain't no place for a woman" act without breaking up.
The storyline isn't terrible, but the treatment is so basic that there aren't any surprises. If anything in this movie does surprise you, it will be the powerhouse performance of Zippy the dog. He's saddled with the "best friend" role here and has to listen to Berenger soliloquy, but still decides to save his life when necessary.
Everything surrounding the central characters and the tribe seems haphazardly planned. It's not Berenger's fault that his character is stupid, but why would he endanger the tribe he wants to protect by holding up a drugstore to get penicillin?
The photography is pretty, to be sure, but nothing you couldn't get in a Sierra Club calendar. And the interesting aspects of the premise (white man's encounter with the untamed "other," 500 years later) are never explored at all.
Murphy approaches this modern Western as a cross between that genre and historical mystery, and the "search for the past" motif wears thin very quickly.
We're an hour into this film before we even see the title characters. And as much as Hershey coos over the Indian babies, we never get a glimpse of their way of life or why she should "admire" them for "providing us with myth."
The Last of the Dogmen is interesting insofar as all Westerns are, but it really doesn't have anything to make it worth seeking out. But neither does it have anything which would make it worth avoiding. Unless you've got a morbid interest in one of the stars, just wait and catch it on HBO.
This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the September 8, 1995 issue.
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