Red Dog starring Josh Lucas (Movie)

Red Dog starring Josh Lucas

Kriv Stenders’ Red Dog starring Josh Lucas is a domesticated family drama. It’s about a hitchhiking hound that actually united a remote Australian mining community in the 1970s. There are stretches of Red Dog when the film achieves a kind of existential purity. Particularly those featuring its canine lead picking his way along some dusty Outback trail on a solitary quest. But then the two-legged actors butt in and the moment is lost.

For the most part, this family drama is genial but unsophisticated fare, with plenty of hammy acting and broad humour. Like the titular pooch, the fact-based film has roamed far and wide. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. Then it charmed audiences at festivals in the U.S., the U.K. and Jerusalem.

Iron Ore Towns

Red Dog is played with remarkable eloquence by a local named Koko. The stray kelpie cross with fur as red as iron ore took to the role with ease. Iron ore underpins the fledgling mining outpost where he lived in the far north of Western Australia. It was the exploits of this charismatic canine that prompted the Dampier locals to erect a statue to him at the entrance to their town.

Plenty of legends sprang up around Red Dog and, in the film, these are duly relayed to a truck driver (Luke Ford, from Animal Kingdom) who arrives at the local pub to find the town mascot dying from a dose of poisoned bait.

In flashback, we see the scrappy adventurer hitch a ride into town with the newly arrived publican (Noah Taylor) and promptly become confidante to a disparate bunch of lonely men. He is everyone’s dog, but no one’s in particular – until he meets American bus driver John (Josh Lucas) and sees in him a fellow transient searching for a place to belong.

Red Dog’s Exploits

Red dog’s exploits include saving lives and playing matchmaker between the bus driver John and his love interest Nancy. He is said to have wandered across thousands of miles for years searching for his missing master. What a loyal companion he was!

Unembellished by effects or guile, Red Dog celebrates nostalgia. It reminds you of the pioneering spirit of those who first worked the alien, rust-colored landscape. There is a plain-spoken quality to the storytelling that borders on naivety. For those who aren’t Australian, you may find that some of the more roughly drawn characters begin to grate early.

Lucas gives a relaxed performance and Rachael Taylor (Transformers), as his love interest Nancy, one of the few women in town, is suitably spunky. But their furry co-star puts his more garrulous companions in the shade. New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Whale Rider when she was just 11, is wasted in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role as a miner’s wife.

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