Dakota
SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMSWhile they may be man’s best friend, dogs are no fan of the films. Dakota joins the insufferable ranks of animal-led features that hope to rip the heartstrings of viewers out, dragging wallets and tears with them. Sickening layers of sentiment try and coat the obvious lack of originality this Kirk Harris-directed feature provides. Should it be all that surprising that Dakota, instead of building layers to its characters, becomes a film awash with the thin veneer of American patriotism? Anything to sell a feature that has its leading character pair up with a dog that hopes to forget its troubles of war. Fascinatingly poor in taste at the best of times because of just how thin a narrative director Kirk Harris casts, there is little empathy or joy to be had for the Hallmark-tier feeling Dakota manages to provide.
Presumable lead Abbie Cornish has had and will have great roles. Dakota does not offer that. Instead, it offers the Suckerpunch and Limitless star the opportunity to make nothing out of nothing. She and William Baldwin support up-and-comer Lola Sultan, and the trio make for a delightfully ineffective on-screen unit. Interestingly enough it’s Sultan, the most inexperienced of the three, to give the best performance. Whether that is a sincere desire to prove themselves in the face of a horrendous script or natural talent in the face of rising stardom is unknowable considering their lacklustre credits elsewhere. Still, it is reassuring to see that Dakota is not an entirely lost film, even though it uses quick cuts to dogs stuck in Afghanistan as an emotional hurdle.
It is sincerely amazing how many films are willing to rely on American patriotism and the “land of the free” jargon as an in for their emotionally wrought and underdeveloped filmmaking. Somehow the cute dog with PTSD traipses its way to the farmlands of the Sanders family, and from there the local community spirit thrives. Unsurprisingly, Harris attempts to use that angle of warfare as a tense underbelly for a plot that boils down to a dog wandering around a small town where the sheriff says there’s nothing more important than respecting war heroes. Presumably, the respect delivered there is by buying out the hero’s patch of land. Who knows? Who cares? Tim Rozon and Patrick Muldoon certainly don’t. At least, if they are to be judged on their performances it would certainly seem that they couldn’t care less about what goes on or where this story is going.
Seemingly proud of its unstructured, corny nature, Dakota is a family-friendly feature that fails to be either family-oriented or friendly in nature. All bark, no bite for a story that relies all too heavily on the lovable scenes of seeing a dog run around on screen. Even the dog’s acting is poor. But that probably comes from the strange subplot developing around man’s best friend, which at one point involves the sale of a farm and then turns into a dog attacking bandits in a police station with a boot. Fascinatingly inept, but in a frustrating way rather than a feature that can be mocked and ridiculed for its poor choices. No dog left behind? Dakota should have been.