Dogman (2018)
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Dogman Movie Review
Dogman is a 2018 Italian crime drama film directed by Matteo Garrone and starring Marcello Fonte. It’s a very annoying movie.
A gentle dog groomer becomes involved with a violent boxer who terrorizes the neighborhood. Now, I personally had no problem with the film’s story here at all and the message is also fine. It shows us how sometimes those ugly, violent people can ruin the more innocent, sweeter persons and how that can lead to tragedy even.
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But no matter how good the intentions here were, the execution is simply so horrible that the entire movie ended up being exceedingly mediocre. First and foremost, its structure is absolutely atrocious. The first half follows the man’s business which is dog grooming and it does that through way too many unnecessary details, even for me as a big dog person.
And then the second half shifts gears and suddenly we are left with a pure, bloody crime film. The first half is way too slow to be enjoyed more whereas the second half is way too bloody, disgusting, violent and it even pointless with all those unnecessary ugly details.
And it never carried the emotional levity with it thanks to Marcello Fonte’s not so great performance in what truly is an unfortunate role. We just never get to know Marcello as the protagonist and the fact that the main character is so incredibly shallow, dull and underdeveloped led to this character study movie being entirely pointless as what is the point of a character study when you fail at your characterization.
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Dogman starts off solidly and it has a good ending also, but that entire middle section is unfortunately too bleak and also too tedious. The movie is also not all that greatly shot and Matteo Garrone did not do a good job at all in the directorial chair. The script had some potential, but good execution matters and here that just wasn’t the case. I hope the Academy realizes that and doesn’t nominate this undeservedly praised film.
Dogman has a fine beginning and a good ending, but the entire middle section is weak. The movie had good intentions and a solid premise, but the execution is so terrible that it ended up being highly mediocre overall. The main character doesn’t work at all, the first and second half are too vastly different in style plus the movie is tediously paced and uninvolving.
