A Dog’s Way Home
Dogs: A man’s best friend and a filmmaker’s best manipulating device.
Cast of Characters:
Terri – Ashley Judd
Lucas – Jonah Hauer-King
Axel – Edward James Olmos
Olivia – Alexandra Shipp
Capt. Mica – Wes Studi
Bella – voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard
Director – Charles Martin Smith
Screenplay – W. Bruce Cameron & Cathryn Michon
Based on the book A Dog’s Way Home by W. Bruce Cameron
Producer – Gavin Polone
Rated PG for thematic elements, some peril and language.
After her mother is captured by the dastardly animal control officer Chuck (John Cassini), pit bull puppy Bella (voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard) spends the early months of her life evading capture from that same officer as she lives in an abandoned lot with a pack of feral cats. But things begin to look up for her the day she is discovered by Lucas (Jonah Hauer-King), who brings her home and raises her along with his veteran mother Terri (Ashley Judd). Unfortunately for the three, not only is it forbidden by their landlord to house pets, but Officer Chuck is practically moving mountains to get this one dog, simply over a Denver city ban on pit bulls, and he’s willing to bring the entire police department over to strongarm those horrible criminals into obeying the law.
Meanwhile, four kidnappings, a couple of drive-by shootings and a sex trafficking ring skated right on by completely undetected, all ’cause of one dog.
Luckily for Bella, Lucas and his girlfriend Olivia (Alexandra Shipp) have a plan to temporarily send her off to Olivia’s family. Though the 400-mile distance makes it a difficult choice for Lucas to make, he ultimately understands that’s the only way to protect Bella.
It’s too bad, though, that Bella doesn’t understand what Lucas is trying to do, ’cause after being separated from him, she decides to embark on that 400-mile trek back home, thereby rendering Lucas and Olivia’s efforts a complete and utter waste of time. But at least along the way Bella gets to have some fun and exciting adventures with squirrels, foxes, a CGI cougar, a PG-rated gay couple, and a homeless veteran who’s depressed and quite possibly suicidal.
Tons of fun.
Though technically not a sequel to 2017’s A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Way Home does come courtesy of the same author, W. Bruce Cameron, who also co-penned both scripts with his wife Cathryn Michon (not so coincidentally, the trailer for A Dog’s Journey, Cameron’s sequel to A Dog’s Purpose due out this May, played before this film). Both films center on anthropomorphized dogs, but the difference between the two is that A Dog’s Purpose followed one dog soul through multiple rebirths, whereas A Dog’s Way Home is more akin to Disney’s Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.
Films like A Dog’s Way Home and its spiritual predecessor A Dog’s Purpose tend to be critic proof ’cause they’re dealing with dogs, and you’re basically on par with Hitler if young Travis Coates being forced to make the fateful decision to shoot Old Yeller doesn’t tug at your heartstrings. Let’s be honest, regardless of how good or bad the film might be, it’s impossible not to have your emotions thrown into a manipulative whirlwind – just the like the girl who led you on back in high school – once that ending rears its ugly, tear-drenched face ’cause you know it’s closing out with the dog getting an emotional reunion with its owner, or a slow but sure euthanizing in front of Owen Wilson. Still, Marley & Me was okay, and I really enjoyed Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, so as manipulative as dog-themed movies tend to be, it isn’t out of the ordinary to find one that manages to strike an honest emotional chord.
The Good: Bryce Dallas Howard is tasked with carrying much of the film (or at least her voice is) by bringing Bella to life. Providing her canine protagonist with all the high-strung, overeager energy and excitement we expect from puppies, Howard coasts through this film just fine, though there are moments where not even Howard’s earnestness can save some of the dialogue (more on that later). In fairness, I guess in an odd way, given that the story’s perspective is from that of a young pit bull, you can maybe excuse laughable dialogue when it’s coming from a simple-minded, childlike dog.
That’s a whole lot more than can be said for the human actors in this film (once again, more on that later).
The Bad: Oh, boy, where to begin? So this is January for you. Sometimes you get fooled just a little bit by that first week of the month where you’re surprised with a film that’s actually not that bad, but then that second or third week comes along, and you’re like… oh, yeah… once a January, always a January. Look, I don’t wanna be the bad guy that mercilessly beats up the kiddie movie that comes with a poster of a cute puppy staring lovingly back at me as if she’s begging me to give the film an A+. But, you know what? Someone’s got to in order to prevent you all from seeing it, so I don’t end up having to see another dumpster fire like A Dog’s Way Home all ’cause moviegoers across America dished out enough millions of dollars to convince the studios they need to make a sequel.
Director Charles Martin Smith is no stranger to heartwarming dog movies with Disney’s Air Bud notched on his resume. While no one’s gonna be making the case for it to receive the Disney Platinum Edition any time soon, that film still had enough kid-friendly charm to pass for a tolerable diversion. A Dog’s Way Home is every bit as harmless and inoffensive as Smith’s 1997 canine feature, but it is also a complete and total mess tonally and thematically. This is a film that wants to be both a wacky, dog-led, hijinks-filled adventure and a serious exploration of heavy subjects like PTSD, post-war depression and homeless veterans. You have to have the deftest of deft filmmaking touches to pull off that tonal balancing act, and Smith drops the ball in unspectacular fashion.
It’s not that the film has to stay light on its feet for every single second of its runtime. Even the most G-rated family adventures and Disney classics have a little touch of darkness thrown into them. The difference here is that A Dog’s Way Home starts out at cute, ventures over to dark, jumps right over pummeling sadness and shoots all the way out to morbid, and Smith handles each of these jarring tone shifts with the sensitivity and carefulness of a survivor-less twenty-car pileup. One moment we’re dealing with cartoonish villains who have more sneers and snarls than all the cranky, geriatric Scooby-Doo amusement park owners combined, the next moment we’re witnessing a disabled veteran struggle to describe his PTSD. One moment a cover of Edgar Winter’s “Free Ride” blasts away in the background when Bella scampers through a grocery store to pilfer some rotisserie chicken while grocery clerks try to catch her only to stumble all over each other like bumbling fools – WOO-HOO!! WHAT FUN!! Then, literally seconds after that bit of crazy, goofy, super, SOOOOPER silly wackiness, she’s stuck getting exploited for free sympathy cash by a homeless vet, who apparently has some kind of death wish.
Then YIPPEE!!!! Another daff, daff, daff, daff, oh so daffy montage!!
Perhaps stronger filmmaking hands could more delicately shift between the film’s sticky sweet lightheartedness and its melancholic subjects. If there are such hands, they certainly are not attached to the arms of Smith, who sets a snappy, happy-go-lucky pace for the film’s lighter, sillier scenes, and then proceeds to stay the same plucky, zip-a-dee-do-dah course as it crashes into the film’s punishingly depressing segments.
‘Cause nothing says snappy, plucky, zany hijinks fun for the whole family more than watching two kids find a stray, dehydrated dog chained to a corpse.
The Ugly: While I would love to spend more time talking about the CGI “big kitty”, whose distractingly computer-generated appearance is so obvious they might as well have just cast a cat in a green screen suit and called it good, I need to call out this movie’s atrocious dialogue. It’s one thing to have dopey lines meant for a naïve dog character, it’s another to have an actual human character, in this case Olivia, scold with every ounce of earnest righteous anger she has, “That’s – like – racism for dogs!!”. Or how ’bout when the dastardly landlord from across the street threatens Ashley Judd with “this means war”, and she sternly replies, “War? What do you know about war?” Judd some way, somehow so miraculously manages to pull that line off with nary a faint crack of smile, much less all-out burst laughter that she honestly deserves to lock up the next ten Best Actress Oscars.
I, on the other hand, was not as disciplined in containing my laughter.
I know. I know. This is a movie for families, so I shouldn’t expect the punchy dialogue of a razor-sharp David Mamet script. But, then again, this film chose to wade into deeper subjects like PTSD, homelessness, post-war trauma, depression and doggy racism, so if those are areas it wants to examine, then I do expect it to be handled with more substance.
Consensus: Mawkish, emotionally manipulative, and, at times, strangely disturbing for a family adventure, A Dog’s Way Home may have a heart that’s in the right place, but good intentions can’t save it from its bizarre blend of tones and awkward handling of serious subject matter.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give A Dog’s Way Home a D- (½★).
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