Bottom Feeders: Drowning edition.

This week is going to be a little bit different for Bottom Feeders.  I’m going to review a movie that technically isn’t all that bad.  The direction isn’t terrible, the acting is actually pretty good and the plot isn’t a jumbled mess.  How can a movie have all that going for it and still make the cut?  It can be sad.  So fucking sad.

The movie I am reviewing is called The Plague Dogs.  66% percent of the title is the words ‘plague’ and ‘dogs’ so you know right there it’s going to pretty tragic.  Still, this movie far surpassed even my wildest expectations.  Now normally being sad isn’t enough to make a movie bad…in fact it usually makes them really fucking good.  The difference here is that it’s all pointless.  There’s no moral, it’s not drawing your attention to an important issue and it’s not using it to put a point on a dramatic climax.  It’s just sad, sad, sad for no reason.  Here’s why:

For starters, the opening scene is a dog (his name is Rowf) drowning to death.  Well, technically almost to death.  After he stops breathing his handlers pull him out the water and pump his chest, reviving him.  They set him in his cage for the night to rest up.  They’re going to drown him again tomorrow.  It’s what they do to him every day.  Why?  Just to see what happens – and yes, they say that.  In his cage he talks to his friend, Snitter, about how he can’t go on.  Snitter doesn’t quite understand because the same scientists experimenting on Rowf cut into his brain.  Now he has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality.  Also just because.

Anyways, the dogs find a chance to escape and take it.  They have to climb through the incinerator and roll around in dead dog ashes first but hey, freedom’s freedom right? Well now the dogs have escaped, so what’s next?  Well Snitter used to have an owner, until he died pushing Snitter out of the way of a car, so he thinks they need to find a new master.  Rowf is afraid of people, because they keep drowning him.  He wants to live off the land.  What are two helpless dogs to do?  Starve.  They starve a lot.

I’m not sure how much of this movie is them starving.  If I had to guess I’d say six hours.  While this is going on, the scientists back at the science place find out that the dogs might be infected with bubonic plague.  They don’t want word to get out that they’ve mishandled the deadliest disease ever, so they hire a hunter to kill the dogs.  Meanwhile, Snitter bumps into a different hunter, a friendly one.  He approaches cautiously.  Finally the hunter beckons him over.  Snitter excitedly leaps into the man’s arms.  They’re saved!  Just kidding, his foot triggers the man’s shotgun and blows the friendly hunters face off/all over Snitter.  It doesn’t have anything to do with the plot of the movie, but at this point why not?

So the dogs starve some more and finally meet up with Tod, a fox.  Tod helps them get food and things are very slightly better for about five minutes.  Then the hired hunter finds them.  He’s just about to kill Snitter and Rowf when Tod knocks him off a cliff.  He dies and the dogs chew on his dead body in desperation.  At this point you’re just happy they’re eating.  Finally, word gets out that they have some kind of plague and a massive hunt is organized, complete with hunting dogs.  They corner the three protagonists and Tod decides to lead the dogs down a different trail so the other two can escape.  “Don’t worry, I’ve got a few tricks left up my sleeve.”  he says as they depart.  He is immediately killed.  The dogs run and are eventually chased to the ocean.

On the beach, with men closing in around them, Snitter says he sees an island in the distance.  The camera pans to the ocean.  No island – Snitter’s head is fucking with him again.  He leaps into the water before Rowf can say anything.  Bear in mind that Rowf is just a little bit afraid of water, what with the drownings and all – but he has no choice, so he leaps in the water as well.  They swim out further and start to drown.  If you’re keeping track, yes – this movie both starts and ends with dogs drowning.  Snitter realizes he may have been mistaken, but Rowf says no, there must be an island up there.  End movie.

Yeah that’s about it.  The dogs suffer an unbelievable amount and we leave them drowning in the ocean.  This movie made me so sad it also made me pissed.  Why would you make that thing for me to watch?  It’s literally sadder than any movie about the holocaust.  That’s not because I’m some fucking weirdo that thinks dogs are more important than people.  But these are talking dogs – way more relatable – and when you finish watching a holocaust movie you can wipe off the tears and say “That movie was important.  That story needed to be told.”  What’s the moral here?  That people are assholes?  Well thanks, Plague Dogs, I already knew that.  So that’s why The Plague Dogs is a Bottom Feeders contestant, despite being a solid 3 star movie.  Because I had to watch it, and the least you can do is be sad with me.  Basically – fuck Richard Adams.  Write a fucking happy book for once.

Am I right or am I right?  Email all opinions, in the form of a yes or no answer, to [email protected] and explain yourself before you cause pain to yourself.  Or, follow me on Twitter @Dan_Tompkins.  You can shout at me there and as a bonus, I will amuse you.