Stream it:
|
Own it:
|
With: Aaron Eckhart, Stephen Lang, Nick Searcy, Penelope Mitchell, Diego Tinoco, Grainger Hines, Luis Chávez, Delissa Reynolds
|
Written by: Carlyle Eubank, based on a story by John Stalberg Jr.
|
Directed by: John Stalberg Jr.
|
MPAA Rating: NR
|
Running Time: 100
|
|
Date: 09/29/2023
|
|
|
|
Dog Collar
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
It eventually comes a little unglued, and the ending is silly, but for a while the inventive filmmaking, a committed lead performance, and a harrowing realism make this thriller worth seeing.
A car full of drugs crashes into a homeless encampment, and its driver escapes on foot. K-9 officer Jake Rosser (Aaron Eckhart) arrives on the scene and uses his dog, Ace, to track the culprit. Unfortunately, they are ambushed and Ace is killed. In his grief and rage, Jake attacks an EMT who is unable to treat the animal. The incident is filmed and goes viral.
After a time, and visits with a police therapist, Jake chooses a new dog, Socks, who was formerly a narcotics dog. Under the guise of getting back to work, he begins investigating the mysterious circumstances of Ace's death (his autopsy showed an overdose of Fentanyl). His dangerous trajectory bring him to the heart of a crime syndicate that has a chokehold on a dying city. Is Jake in over his head?
Directed by John Stalberg Jr., Muzzle has a grim, big city feel, with trash piled in every corner, and unhoused people taking up entire streets. (It's like Joker, but with less fantastical remove, more urgently here-and-now.) It's not long into the story before Ace is halted in his tracks by a sidewalk full of broken glass.
Stalberg designs some startling sequences such as a fight seen only in a broken mirror on a swinging door, a shot of Jake stopped by police who are left entirely offscreen as they recognize him from his viral video, or a showdown amidst Fourth of July fireworks. The movie also contains many fascinating sequences depicting the process of training and breaking in K-9 police dogs. (Stephen Lang plays a hardened trainer, complete with a gnarled scar on his bicep.)
Eckhart gets along with his four-legged co-stars spectacularly, and we can feel the depths of their bond; his intensity comes from his love and devotion to his animals. A tacked-on romance with a pretty neighbor (Penelope Mitchell) seems superfluous, there's a ridiculous villain, and more faults as things move to a close, but Muzzle is still a tail worth telling.
|
