‘Dog Eat Dog’ review [LFF 2016]

Dog Eat Dog review: Paul Schrader delivers a surprising, completely bonkers crime comedy/ drama which contains material that is so out there, you won’t know whether to wince or wet yourself laughing.

Dog Eat Dog review by Paul Heath, LFF 2016.

Paul Schrader directs and briefly stars in this completely ‘out there’ crime drama/ supreme black comedy, a weird, mind-bending piece that if his name hadn’t been plastered across the opening credits, you wouldn’t have quite believed that this it comes from the guy responsible for the likes of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

Schrader continues his relationship in working with lead Nicolas Cage following their last turn with The Dying Of The Light in 2014 with this deeply dark piece revolving around three ex cons, Troy (Cage), Mad Dog (Willem Dafoe) and Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook). Matthew Wilder‘s screenplay has the three kooky, very off-beat characters employed by a slightly deranged mob-boss who needs them to take a one-year-old baby hostage to be held for ransom. Things don’t go to plan and the criminals soon find themselves on the run from both local law-enforcement and the mobsters that hired them.

That synopsis projects a very run-of-the-mill crime feature, but once Schrader’s movie you soon realise that the veteran filmmaker has other plans. With its initial brightly lit, multi-coloured, contrasting sets to his three very-wired central characters and outlandish performances, this kinetic crime caper is an assault on the senses with reams and reams of stark originality. The film is a wildly edited affair – think more Guy Ritchie’s Snatch rather than any of the director’s previous efforts- it is soaked with glowing neons, frantically cut action scenes and many a strip bar with tons of naked flesh throughout.

Willem Dafoe’s very unhinged Mad Dog and Cage’s slightly off-kilter Troy are a joy to watch, their very violent antics more funny than foul. This is Cage’s wildest performance in years, and perhaps his best, something that can also be said of Dafoe, the actor devouring the material and bringing a unique crazed crook/ psychotic killer to the screen in audacious form. Cook’s Diesel is the most grounded though, very much needed when lined up against the likes of the.

Dog Eat Dog dazzles, grabs your from the off and don’t let you go until the final frames – where Cage hilariously channels Humphrey Bogart as the plot reaches a pleasing, totally bonkers crescendo. While the subject matter and film-making style won’t gel with some – think Tarantino by way of Ritchie mixed in with a touch of Abel Ferrara – we had an absolute blast all of the way through. It’s nuts, but quite the ride.

Dog Eat Dog review by Paul Heath, October 2016.

Dog Eat Dog will be released on 18th November 2016 across the UK.