TIFF 2013: The Dog Review

The Dog

The Dog

TIFF Docs

Directors: Allison Berg, Frank Keraudren

Based on the true story of a man – who by his own admission is a loutish pervert – who tried to rob a bank to pay for his lover’s sex change operation, The Dog was already made into the vastly more intriguing Sidney Lumet fictional film Dog Day Afternoon. After spending about fifteen minutes with Dog Day’s inspiration, the late Broolynite John Wojtowicz, and this incredibly unpolished look back on his life, you’d be begging for Lumet’s version of the events instead.

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Intensely repetitive and almost unnecessarily abrasive (probably thanks to the people involved all really being assholes in their own right), Berg and Keraudren seem to be getting off on the sex and violence behind the story rather than trying to take a look at the specifics of the robbery or what it meant culturally at the time. It’s incredibly repetitive, constantly falling back on what a marvel it was that this iconic criminal was a gay man doing things to help his trans lover. It’s kind of insulting and shorthanded, in a way. A brief look at how Wojotowicz – a former Goldwater Republican – was actually proud about his sexuality and how he campaigned for gay marriage rights is interesting, but then you realize he’s actually a massive jerk again and the film becomes harder and harder to watch, with no other interviews to say he was actually a good guy. Everyone hates him, and the movie sadly suffers tonally as a result.

Screens

Sunday, September 15th, Scotiabank 3, 9:00pm



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