The least convincing aspect of “Dog,” then, is the dog. (Funnily enough, Tatum’s cutesy talking-to-dogs voice sounds a lot like Mark Wahlberg’s singsongy talking-to-people voice.) Charisma comes easy to Tatum, and though Briggs is dealing with brain damage, there’s more going on upstairs than there was for Jenko in “21 Jump Street.” Where once this industry was defined by great thespians, its top tier is now crowded with ex-soap stars and underwear models, in whose company Tatum is still right at home. Sure, Briggs’ night terrors tell us something about the character, but mostly, they reassure us that Tatum - whose broad back, bulging pecs and discreetly flexed triceps are both his “instrument” and his selling point - hasn’t abandoned his hunk status, or else gotten too serious to deny audiences a show. That self-awareness is clear from the opening scene, in which Tatum awakens, sweaty and shirtless, on the floor of his cabin, panting like a dog. But if you think that Tatum (who gave Lulu the same name as his own recently deceased pooch) plans to follow this horse all the way to the glue factory, you’ve underestimated his instincts as an entertainer. That’s an even bigger bummer for audiences, since, like Briggs, we spend an hour and a half falling in love with her. (Rodriguez drove himself into a tree at 120 mph, Briggs learns, slow to accept what that must mean.) And they certainly don’t want to learn that once Rodriguez is buried, the Army intends to euthanize the dog. They don’t want to be reminded that Lulu, like their son/brother/beloved, came back broken. As for the dogs who served alongside - now here’s the part no one wants to hear - sometimes the damage is so great, there’s no choice but to put them down.īriggs knows when he collects Lulu that their mission is a performative one: Rodriguez was uniquely bonded to the animal, and now his family expects to see this legendary “hero dog” at his funeral. Instead, Tatum and Carolin use this easy-sell bonding exercise to focus on how those who serve the country are left to deal with the lingering wounds, both physical and psychological, on their own. It’s hardly a new subject, but it is an important one, and the team certainly could have bypassed it altogether and gone for a cuddlier approach. What results is closer to “First Blood” (the original Rambo movie) than “Turner and Hooch,” as Carolin’s script confronts the impact of PTSD on Army veterans, human and canine alike. But this is no easy cross-country trip, since both Briggs and Lulu are dealing with some pretty serious trauma from their time in the service, and it doesn’t take much to trigger either of them. Instead, he accepts the domestic assignment - a thankless errand, really - of transporting Lulu all the way to Arizona for the funeral of Jackson’s old Ranger buddy Riley Rodriguez (Eric Urbiztondo), who helped train her. On the surface, it looks like a familiar enough road movie: Back from Afghanistan, making submarine sandwiches for minimum wage somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, Jackson Briggs (Tatum) wants to redeploy, but a brain injury makes that impossible. ![]() ![]() That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to those won over by “Magic Mike,” the popular 2012 meat parade that Tatum and Carolin hatched together, tapping directly into the movie star’s strengths: “Dog” is a lowbrow but by no means lazy crowd-pleaser, one where the fun that Tatum and company took in making it translates directly to the pleasure we take in watching. I was not offered a refund for the product only the option to cancel the monthly subscription.Like John Travolta and Sylvester Stallone before him, Tatum is not an actor of particularly wide range, but he knows what his audience wants, and in “Dog,” he gives them more than they bargained for. As part of the marketing it specifically says it detects a fall from a change in movement (nothing about having to fall directly onto the wristband). The issue we have is what would happen if she fell and wasn’t conscious so couldn’t press the panic button. When I called customer service I was informed that it would only work if she actually fell on it which seems ridiculous as who falls specifically on one part of their body? And that there was a panic button for her to press to alert us. She has had a few nasty falls and we were not alerted. However it goes off when she is shaking out cushions but does not go off and alert us when she actually falls. As she has a mobile and is out and about it seemed like a great product. I got this for my mum who is 65 and still active (but has dizzy spells/falls as part of an ongoing condition) as it looked good and said it would detect a fall and let me and my siblings know.
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