Max, le meilleur ami de l'homme

Lori Tanner (Ally Sheedy) a mediocre reporter who dreams of big-time. She gets her big break as she sneaks into a laboratory that is accused of having animal cruelty. She unwittingly releases poor pitiful Max, a lab experiment hound, in her pursuit for justice and a great story.

Max returns the favor by protecting her from a mugger. They soon bond and Lori is oblivious to Max's potential for good or evil.

The fun part of the movie is that we get to see Max's potential for good or evil. The situation makes us cheer for Max and overlook his few foibles. We also suspect and look forward to our local authorities (Robert Costanzo, and John Cassini) becoming dog chow.

It was a nice touch having the comic relief of dog catchers in this presentation.

It's not the best film or the worst or the best story or the worst but it is worth watching.

What we have here is a cute lovable dog taken as a pet into a house by a news reporter Lori (Ally Sheedy) after she rescues him from a genetic research facility, unaware that Joseph Mengele's brother Jarret (Lance Henriksen) has genetically altered the dog performing vivisection giving him enhanced strength, speed, and senses. The dog can climb trees, understand different languages, he enjoys being a peeping Tom when couples get intimate, ( but we dont get to see any nudity), the dog can copulate n produce multiple puppies n most of all it can camouflage itself. Watch out for the camouflage scene man. The film has some nasty kills but mostly offscreen n it lacked tension apart from the poor cat scene. The tag line ridiculed Cujo but they forgot that Cujo is filled with genuine tension n suspense.

I first saw this in the mid 90s on a vhs. Revisited it few days back.

This mutated dog sci-fi/ horror / black comedy requires complete suspension of disbelief, and if you can live with that premise, you will find "Man's Best Friend" entertaining. Although Lance Henriksen receives second billing, his screen time is somewhat disappointing. The sci-fi element is never explored, giving way to "Cudjo"-like maulings and some moments of "dark comedy". There is a little too much cutesy stuff involving the genetically engineered dog, but overall other than the lack of Henriksen, this is a totally acceptable time waster. The dog is really the star, with the actors assuming a secondary role. - MERK

It's the same old story... Girl rescues dog from test lab, girl wants to keep cute and heroic dog as her pet, dog turns out to be a genetically altered killing machine that wants to destroy girl's fiancée by peeing acid on his face. Hm, on second thought, it's not that common at all! In fact, with its absurdly ingenious plot, tongue-in-cheek humor and excessive gore, "Man's Best Friend" is one of the best horror movies of the overall disappointing 90s decade.

It's been approximately 25 years since I watched "Man's Best Friend" for the first and last time. I loved it instantly, but due to my youthful age at the time, I only had eyes for the virulent dog-attacks and thus never really realized that writer/director John Lafia delivered a pitch-black comedy. Lance Henriksen is exquisite as the mad scientist who turned an ordinary cuddly Tibetan Mastiff into the undefeatable and super-intelligent Max-3000. When TV anchor Ally Sheedy sets him free, she doesn't realize she activated a drooling time bomb.

Name any cliché involving dogs in the movies; - "Man's Best Friend" features it! Max runs after paperboys on bikes, chases kittens up trees, bites sadist dog abusers in the crotch, fools around with dog catchers and fanatically grabs arrogant mailmen by the throat. The difference with Max is that everything is just a tad bit ...bloodier! For the skeptical viewers who then still don't believe "Man's Best Friend" is a parody, just look at the sequence where our furry anti-hero Max spots a cute blond Lassie, and a cover of Paul Anka's "Puppy Love" spontaneously begins to play. Delicious!

This is one of those movies that can entertain you as long as you don't get too critical. The basic premise of the story line is a good one but as with many low budget Sci-Fi films there are flaws in the telling.

The biggest flaw is in the title itself. Being as this dog befriends Ally Sheedy's character and basically snarls at all the men it come across the film probably should have been called "Woman's Best Friend" or better yet "M.A.X.".

Other than the title though the movie is basically a good film and you have to get pretty picky to find any real problems with it. It's not a great movie but it has some good scares, moments of comic relief, and some cool special effects.

I don't know why this film has gotten such a low over-all rating. I know that IMDb ratings tend to average a bit on the low side but still this movie deserves a lot better than a 4.4. I have given the film a 7 and feel this movie is good enough to add to any one's DVD library if found at budget prices.

Definitely worth a rental if you haven't already seen it.

EB