Dogman

This movie is a portrait of the consequences of making bad decisions in your life despite the fact that you are very lucky.

It is a film with a difficult plot to capture, it is more complex than it is believed. The film very well exposes the main character's reasons that lead him to act that way, it states that sometimes we do not realize what we have and that we do not value it enough, it teaches us that we can make very stupid decisions that affect things that matter to us and that our greed can blind our judgment, hurting ourselves. The film has good acting, good photography, good script, and good production design. The negative aspects are the lack of development of some characters and lack of development explanation of how the protagonist begins to commit illegalities.

With a complex plot, the film manages to expose its message and portray the feelings that a person can have when making poor decisions.

Marcello is a timid, weak-minded dog groomer in a lower class neighborhood. He's a loving father and a dog lover. He deals coke to volatile brute Simoncino who terrorizes the neighborhood and never pays for anything. He gets pushed into joining Simoncino in his crime sprees. The situation spirals out of control as Simoncino's relentless brutality is matched only by Marcello's meekness.

Marcello's pathetic nature is a bit frustrating at first. His character becomes very compelling as he gets more complex. He is like a dog mistreated by his violent master. He shows his humanity and his soft nature but he is moulded by his handler. There is a magnetism to his meekness. They are all very compelling characters. Despite his flaws and the inevitable tragedy, one hopes for the best. It's a brilliant character study.

This is a small but lovely and dark Italian gem. Its such a stylish and well-told story. It feels so iconic and classic and the two leading actors give exceptional and unique performances. I felt invested from the very first minute and the whole movie had a dark charm and told a not-so-important, but thrilling story. There are some elements, like the quirky performance of the leading actor and the impressive storytelling that make this film kind of exceptional. 8/10 Watch it

Bullying. How do we deal with bullies? This is the main ingredient in this Italian drama. What is the easiest way out when someone is bullying? It is this choice that the main character here is in. The film's main character is in this dilemma, and we follow the discomfort that develops. If you can not solve the problem, is it possible to live with it? The choice the main character here makes is difficult to understand, but still understandable. This makes the film engaging, but it is demanding to watch. We suspect that this will come to a final clarification. And that it will not be pretty. I liked Dogman. Good script, relevant and good acting. But I struggled to understand why the main character made the choices he made. Maybe others interpret it differently?

The desolate beach resort and shady characters, familiar from Gomorrah, plays back drop to the dog man, Marcello, of the title. He is played by the superb Marcello Fonte, who he is directed well in this tale of morality and dog grooming amongst the immoral.

This is not a story of co-dependence; it is a modern story of paths that cross but never synchronise. While Marcello seems to play the inferior to a bully, we learn very quickly that Marcello is not a schlemiel, but I'm wondering if some reviewers missed this. He is the little guy, but in a milieu where the little guy has a valid place.

Problems with the film appear in two areas; Fonte is simply a much better actor than those around him, and the canvas for this film starts to look too small, very quickly. We are given strange bits of wonderful cinematography, before returning to the squalid world of the dog man. This neither serves to make the film seem kooky, or more realistic. Unlike Gomorrah that held an unrelenting documentary eye, this looks like at times a tentative Trainspotting.

There is something good going on here, but it doesn't quite make it's way into a fully fledged film. It engages strongly in parts, but just like the ending, doesn't focus on one thing or the other.