Review: 'DOG' Is Much More Than a Buddy Road Trip Movie

“Sir, are you asking me to fly a damn dog to Arizona?” asks medically retired Army Ranger Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum). “No, I’m asking you to drive a Ranger to Arizona,” Captain Jones (Luke Forbes) replies. “She refuses to fly.” And so begins DOG, a road trip movie about a dog that ends up being about so much more.

Lulu must attend the funeral of her wartime handler Riley Rodriguez (Eric Urbiztondo). Rodriguez, like so many veterans, took his life, but even that isn’t enough to motivate Briggs to make the trip. Briggs finally agrees to transport Lulu by car from Washington state to Nogales, Ariz., only after Jones commits to recommend Briggs, who is afflicted with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), for a diplomatic security job he’s been desperately pursuing. After all, a road trip could be fun, and how difficult could it be to drive a dog to a destination?

It turns out it’s pretty difficult when the dog in question is an anxiety-riddled, medically retired military canine named Lulu (Britta, Zuza, Lana). Needless to say, Lulu and Briggs each bring plenty of emotional baggage on this trip, which leads to many clashes as well as laughter along the way. The hesitant Briggs and the damaged Lulu manage to bond in surprising ways through their unexpected adventures with vapid and intolerant Portlanders, psychic pot-growing forest hippies, having their ’84 Bronco broken into and completely break down in the desert, plus pulling a con in a luxury hotel, among other antics.

Interestingly, Briggs and Lulu are mirror images of each other. He is the TBI-afflicted war hero struggling with night terrors and other problems who is looking for a new life after the military. She is the hero war dog repeatedly muzzled and misunderstood due to her own traumatic terrors and whose very life hangs in the balance after her military service comes to an end. Both Briggs and Lulu are highly-trained and valuable wartime assets whose peacetime value is in question. Will Briggs get the new security job? If not, what will become of him? Will Lulu learn to trust again and allow Briggs to help her, or will she be unceremoniously put down “by a needle that’s not a hero’s death”?

In DOG, his directorial debut, Channing Tatum also expertly carries the dialogue nearly on his own, which is no small feat. His all-American charisma doesn’t hurt either. MGM’s DOG is an honest tale of how the love and bond of camaraderie can aid both a broken dog and a broken soldier. DOG is a window into the world we don’t often get to see. It’s not only an iconic American road trip movie, but it also has an added level of our nation’s love for the working dogs and men and women in uniform who make that trip possible in the first place.

“That dog did exactly what she was born to do, to live a legendary life, and she did,” says Briggs. How many of us can say that about our own lives?

DOG from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures hits theaters on Feb. 18, 2022. Here’s the trailer: