Muzzle

I have never reviewed a film before, but felt compelled to do so after giving this a watch.

I saw the previews and was excited to sit down and watch...unfortunately, the best part of the movie was the trailer. Eckhart did his best with what he had to work with, but it there were so many forced scenes it was distracting. Beyond that, while the story is pretty linear, scene to scene seems to leave out a lot of information in regards to character development and development of friendships when seemingly there was none.

This is definitely a watch it once film. In the hands of a capable director and producer this could have been excellent.

The film story is pretty good apart from a pretty odd and under-sketched villain, but what is distracting is the poor quality of the dialogue.

It's a combination of badly recorded dialogue, likely with a lack of options, and amateur use of dialogue cleanup software.

In this case, ADR would have been better to replace the bad parts.

ADR is replacing on set dialogue with new dialogue recorded later in a studio or custom spaces to replicate sets after the film has been shot. If ADR isn't done well, it sounds terrible. The actor has to be good at it, and importantly, the dialogue sound engineer needs to know how to deal with it to make it sound like it was recorded in the environment we see on film.

For a feature, it's a time consuming process and you have to pay the actors more, so perhaps they didn't have the money for it on this film?

Sometimes directors don't like ADR, which is common. In this instance, hire a better sound recordist!

To explain the 'lack of options' term above, there are usually at least 2 microphones used to record actors lines. One is the boom which is often suspended over the actors heads, the other is the Lav which is hidden on the actors body as close to the mouth as possible.

Sometimes sound recordists stuff up Lav mic placement and all you get is scrapes and bumps from the clothes ribbing on the mic and the Lav recording becomes mostly unusable. You are then left with only the boom mic recording.

In noisy environments, boom mics can pick up as much background sound as dialogue, which is a pain and hard to edit. Here, digital audio cleanup software comes into play, and gets used to remove the background noise. If digital cleanup is done badly, you get the kind of dialogue quality which is present within too many shots in this film.

Had I heard about this 2023 crime thriller titled "Muzzle" from writers Carlyle Eubank and John Stalberg Jr. Prior to sitting down to watch it? No. But I figured that the movie might be worth a shot, since it had Aaron Eckhart and Stephen Lang on the cast list. Plus, the fact that it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, also helped to make me sit down to watch it.

The storyline in "Muzzle", as written by Carlyle Eubank and John Stalberg Jr., was a pretty straightforward one. Ultimately then the movie came off as being a rather generic crime thriller. So the writers didn't really manage to accomplish a whole lot with the script and storyline. A shame, because there certainly was potential for something here.

The acting performances in "Muzzle" were good, and Aaron Eckhart does carry the movie well enough in the leading role. It wasn't a movie that boasted a whole lot of familiar faces on the cast list. In fact, I was only familiar with Aaron Eckhart and Stephen Lang.

For a crime thriller, then the movie was not particularly interesting or thrilling. And that made for a somewhat bland and mediocre viewing experience. And while I did manage to finish the movie, I can honestly say that I was only mildly entertained. This is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of director John Stalberg Jr.'s 2023 crime thriller "Muzzle" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.

I feel like you have to have some sort of connection to dogs at the very least to comprehend the reason behind plot. Bonus if you're LE or a MWD Handler. These dogs are technically equipment, but they're so much more. They're a lifeline. Jake (Aaron Eckhart) has a military background and an LE job with a very expensive piece of equipment for a partner, multiple actually. (Ace and Sox/Socks) Right off from the start you get an insight to how he leans on this dog; he has full blown conversations while on patrol. (Any *loving* dog parent can tell you, we all have full blown convos with our dog. Sometimes even talking back to ourselves as the dog. LOL)

The fact the dogs in this story line were taken and turned into weapons for the bad (versus the greater good) is the heartbreaking part. The dogs are mere pawns. Jake is having none of it.

I don't quite grasp the negative reviews of this film. Was it a blockbuster? No. Did it keep my attention? Absolutely. (Which is no easy feat.) This is worth a rewatch down the line as well.

Overall, great movie. Not a 10, but great nonetheless.

IN A NUTSHELL: The story is about a cop whose canine partner gets killed in the line of duty. After losing his dog, Jake Rosser plummets deep into a sinister underworld to uncover the truth about who may be responsible.

The film was directed by John Stalberg Jr, who also wrote it with Carlyle Eubank.

THINGS I LIKED: I've been a fan of Aaron Eckhart for years, and I usually like all of his movies, so I was interested in seeing this one. The movie is a study that shows how both his character and the dog are muzzled by past traumas.

I also really like Stephen Lang as an actor. His characters always look like they have a long story to tell about their background.

The movie shows a very ugly side of what's happening in America now. The streets are filled with homeless people in tents surrounded by garbage and worse things. The story takes place in Los Angeles which, sadly, has turned into a complete dumpster fire of a city.

The color palette of the film is dirty and grimy, perfectly representing the filthy underworld the movie is about.

You'll learn some German words because cops speak to their canine partners in German! I've heard that German Shepherds are one of the smartest dogs.

There is a suspenseful scene with some action that utilizes very interesting camera angles. Well done.

The ending is really sweet.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: The love interest is odd. The woman is a nurse with her own set of emotional baggage, so it's weird that she would be interested in an infamous, violent cop who has shown zero warmth toward her when they first met. She basically throws herself at him, vanishes for the majority of the story, and then shows up at the end of the movie with almost no more interaction with the cop.

The final villain looked like a cartoon character.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Profanity, including F-bombs We see prostitutes, crazy people, and druggies on the streets An explosion kills people Violence Blood A variety of weapons are used Cigarettes and alcohol use We see people get killed in various ways.

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