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Movie:		9.0
Picture:		8.0
Sound:		8.0
Extras:		2.0
Score:		7.0

Director(s):	Carlos Moreno
Writer(s):	Carlos Moreno & Alonso Torres
Starring:	Óscar Borda • Blas Jaramillo • Marlon Moreno • Paulina Rivas
Genre:	Action • Drama
Website:	http://perrocomeperro.com/
Release Date:	December 08, 2009

List Price:	DVD - $17.49
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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, A Simple Plan, Fargo, seems like every other good movie has a big bag full of money as its centerpiece. Dog Eat Dog is yet another. Luckily, it’s not a wasted or half-hearted effort (Big Nothing comes to mind); it’s just a damn fine film.

Bookended by a catchy salsa theme, Dog Eat Dog is a typical crime story with an atypical sense of rhythm. Whereas Sierra Madre and A Simple Plan find their strength in their slow crawl towards inevitable moral collapse, Dog Eat Dog never seems stagnant for even a moment, and even when introducing rather unexpected notions, never loses its grip or believability. It takes risks, revels in its rapid descent towards ultimate oblivion and never lets up so you can relax. You’ll find yourself with precious few moments to catch your breath even in the first third of the film. Its scant running time should allow for far more frequent revisits than Huston’s opus or Raimi’s oft-overlooked subversion of middle class complacency.

Cinematographically speaking, the film is beautiful. The visceral energy it’s got flowing through it never breaks, and makes a select few striking images particularly unsettling. Blood glistens in the sun, derelict architecture seems coldly beautiful even in a scorching summer day. Wisely, it never loses sight of what makes it a unique film among its contemporaries and predecessors, and it uses its rapid-fire pacing and dynamic set pieces to give a stronger sense of urgency when things slow down, or become even more frenzied. Even when its characters are trying to fall asleep in their horrid little motel room for the 10th abysmal night in a row, you’re riveted, as by the midway point there’s really no telling what anyone is capable of anymore. These people sleep with guns in their hands, not just under their pillows.

Yes, it’s in Spanish and gosh, having to read a movie is so frustrating, but the dialogue in Dog Eat Dog really isn’t the heart of the film, and frankly it could work without any of it on the strength of its visual polish and brilliantly upbeat, atonal soundtrack. There’s very little banter whose meaning couldn’t be inferred by simply watching the characters interact with one another. Superb performances surprisingly never weigh the film down at all, each character having their own subtly electrifying mannerisms to focus on. While the film’s central metaphor of doglike behavior couldn’t be better implemented by its conclusion, following its characters and attempting to track their logical progression is more akin to watching hamsters scurry their way though a labyrinth of tubes and obstacles. Nothing ever reaches the dynamic heights of some other films in the genre, but certain actions in the final sequences surprised me in how easily I was able to accept them. A very real sense of urgency in the endgame is doubly effective in that the whole time you’ll be thinking, even if this works out, it won’t matter. If such a notion is an indicator that a film of this type has worked the way it’s suppose to, then I suppose Dog Eat Dog is one of the better entries in this perhaps overwrought genre in recent years.

As the packaging art of IFC Films’ technically impressive DVD indicates, amidst a veritable cavalcade of embodied praise and festival logos, this is Columbia’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at next year’s Oscars, as well as the country’s first film to be accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. While that’s hard to believe for a country that so obviously has countless stories to tell, it’s impressive as a milestone, and director Carlos Moreno should be proud of his vibrant and compellingly distressing work. It’s rare that a film with as small a budget as Dog Eat Dog is able to do more than simply stand out from the pack, but like I said - it’s just a damn fine film.

DVD Bonus Features

Trailers for a ton of other IFC Films releases are all we seem to get in the way of bonus material, unfortunately.