Last of the Dogmen (1995)

...that Crap Murphy watched Dances with Wolves and sketched an outline for this turd during the credits. The writing is absolutely dreadful, the dialogue preposterous, stiff, and unbelievable. The silly-ass scenes when Berenger is first meeting Barbara Hershey are cringingly bad. An especially tired and lame "where is the old fart?" had me reaching for the remote. Hershey's equally unbelievable "I have to warn you, I like to walk around naked in the morning..." really puts a spotlight on the lack of chemistry between the two leads. In fact I'm pretty sure they only chose Hershey because she vaguely looks like Mary McDonnell from Dances WW. I guess I shouldn't be but I am again surprised by all of the glowing and gushing going on in previous reviews. I just don't understand why EVERYONE doesn't see how poor the dialogue is, how crap the premise is, how rusty and predictable the plot twists are. It's true the scenery is breathtaking but it's hardly a distraction from the half-assed writing and directing by this Murphy hack. No wonder Hollywood keeps churning out garbage. Garbage has an audience. Not a very large one, however, as is evidenced by the fact that I'd never heard of this movie before. Maybe if I had kids that I had to entertain I would feel differently about the films worth, but I wouldn't fail to notice the Saved-by-the-Bell-esque attempts at humor or clumsy character development. Seriously, the actors conversations are so embarrassingly ridiculous that I felt like they were written by a Junior High-Schooler. Crap Murphy should stick to that demographic from now on.

This is a stunning film. The scenery is a character in itself. Tom Berenger is completely convincing as the sometime bounty hunter, with a troubled relationship with the father of his deceased wife, scraping a living on the edge of the wilderness. Barbara Hershey plays her part with quiet understated grace. Everything about this story seems authentic. It is fulfilling as an adventure, as a romance, as a superior horse opera. The film makes some excellent points about the environment and cultural heritage without being too preachy. The uneasy juxtaposition of the old world, and the modern one, climaxing in the pursuit of Gates by the local law… A perfect piece of escapism for a long winter's night.

After seeing this movie, I keep saying to myself, "You've got to be kidding." Billed as adult fare, this film turns out to have a juvenile level writing and a Disneyesque finish. It was the first feature film written by Tab Murphy, who went on to write Disney films. Despite reasonably decent directing (Murphy was also the director), someone failed to tell him that this was not a Disney cartoon movie. Terrific acting by the entire cast could not save a script that was marginal at best throughout -- and downright unbelievable toward the end. The movie starts with the sheriff needing our hero Gates to track three escaped convicts because the sheriff couldn't do it, despite his radios, off-road vehicles and helicopters. It's bad enough that Gates displays no tracking ability while chasing the convicts; his dog does all the detective work. Worse yet, when the sheriff decides to form a posse and chase Gates into the wilderness (presumably because Gates stole some penicillin form a drug store), he tracks Gates precisely and directly to the gates of an idyllic Cheyenne community that went without detection for 150 years. My wife is Native American and found the idyllic portrayal of Cheyenne life to be no more realistic than the cartoon Pocahontas. And then, after finding his prey (Gates), the sheriff makes an irrational and unwarranted decision to go even deeper into the wilderness, thereby providing an unexplained villain who now threatens the ancient Native American community, even when Murphy failed to include the sheriff on the community's existence in the first place. It all made for a sappy, hyped and juvenile story line lacking any credibility at the end. Mr. Murphy, please stay with the Disney cartoons and not feature films intended for adults.

As an Indian-lover and a dog-lover, what more could I want than 'Last of the Dogmen'? The best thing about the film is Zip the dog, played by Zip the dog. He is really something. This film was written and directed by Tab Murphy, and it is a tragedy that he has not directed another film since (and this was his first). He did an excellent job. Tom Berenger is superb as the rough cowboy type who rides out into the wilds, with his dog, as a tracker and bounty hunter. Berenger plays this role with particular intensity, as if it meant a lot to him and was not just a job of acting. Barbara Hershey is also excellent as the professor obsessed with Indians. The story is about the survival in a 'lost valley' in the Oxbow region of Montana (actually shot in Alberta, Canada, presumably because Montana is not wild enough anymore) of the descendants of a band of Cheyenne Indians called 'the dogmen'. A lot of real Indians are cast in the film, speaking genuine Cheyenne, as Barbara Hershey astonishingly does herself. These Cheyenne are living a traditional life just as they did in the 1840s, and Berenger and Hershey become hooked on this 'real life' and don't want to leave to go back to the falsities of 'civilisation'. This is a moving fable, dealing with the issues of the 'loss of the wild', the crushing of Native American culture by the unspeakable brutalities of white settlers, the betrayals of trust which deprived the Indians of their habitats, and the continuing psychological perversion of bitter people who want to stop the innocent enjoyment of life by shattering the dreams and the enforcement of degradation upon those too weak to protect themselves. Congratulations to Tab Murphy for this brave testament, and may he find other ways to continue bringing these messages to us, even if he has to rely on smoke signals.