Unconvincing Underdog Story Dogman Is Both Too Strange and Not Strange Enough
Six years since a string of ultimately cleared or dropped allegations towards a director with an irrefutably suspicious track record, and five years since a memory-holed film titled Anna co-starring Cillian Murphy, Luc Besson makes his less-than-triumphant return with Dogman. The mind who brought us Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element saw success with his nonsensical sci-fi film Lucy back in 2014, but whiffed it with the bloated Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets three years later. Ruining the goodwill that allowed him a larger budget, the French director has gone back to producing more humble films, as seen with the Caleb Landry Jones-starring Dogman, a film which has been compared unfavorably to Joker. And indeed, the screenplay has many Joker-esque qualities: An outcast mistreated, abused and abandoned since childhood who then turns to an eccentric, costume-donning life of crime, with a lead actor giving a performance that exists somewhere in the murky space between genuinely impressive and completely confusing.
Dogman opens with the arrest of Doug (Jones), using a wheelchair, donning Marilyn Monroe drag, and driving a truck full of mangy dogs. The narrative charts his life through the events which led up to this moment in his cell, sitting across from psychologist Evelyn (Jojo T. Gibbs) as she prods Doug about just what happened to him to turn him into a criminal crossdresser without the use of his legs.
Coming from an abusive, Bible-thumping family, Doug briefly shared a connection and love of music with a mother who eventually deserted him out of fear of Doug’s father. Prior to her departure, an argument at the dinner table sent Doug’s father into a vicious tizzy that got Doug locked up outside indefinitely in a pen full of angry, starved fight dogs. But the tortured child forms a lifelong, unbreakable bond with the animals—unfortunately, showing love to dogs only makes Doug’s father angrier. He shoots at the child one day, after Doug’s narc brother reveals that a litter of puppies have been birthed in the pen, and Doug is the only thing standing between the pups and his father’s insatiable bloodlust. The bullet damages Doug’s spine, permanently incapacitating his legs to the extent that every labored step he takes is actively killing him. So, he opts to spend the remainder of his days in a wheelchair with braces affixed to both disabled limbs.
The bullet also takes off one of Doug’s fingers, and it’s here that Doug finally escapes his prison. He utilizes one of his doggy friends to deliver the piece of DNA to police and land his father and brother in jail, because as you come to understand, Doug has such a profound connection with his animals that their brain capabilities transcend what has been scientifically known of dogs. Sent to an orphanage, Doug attaches onto a young theater actress hired to put on plays with the children. Their meaningful friendship allows Doug to both experience the type of human connection that he’s craved all his life and also become a deep appreciator of Shakespeare and melodrama. Doug then takes up residence at an abandoned high school where he houses his hoard of dogs and cares for them by working part time at a drag club. He also becomes something of a mafia don/dog rehome service, in which he both adopts dogs out and offers protection via his dogs to people who need it.