The Dog Problem (2006)

A Disappointing Continuation

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Maybe we Aussies just have a totally different sense of humour and therein my lie the only problem here. I have a database of all the DVDs I own (including those received as gifts - which this was) and so, when entering a new one, I always refer to IMDb for such info as genre, runtime, director, leads etc. When entering this, I noted that it was a comedy and so I decided to watch it at a time when I wanted something light and a good laugh. Well, it was neither! There were absolutely NO laughs at all and an inordinate amount of gratuitous profanity (are there REALLY radio announcers allowed to broadcast the sort of filth that Steve Jones dishes out? What if a decent child happened to tune to his station?).Rather than enjoy a good laugh (or even a little giggle) I found the whole thing thoroughly depressing. I have given it 3 out of 10 but, to be honest, I don't know what those 3 are for! I suppose the basics of lighting and sound weren't too bad! We have an ostensibly stone-broke loser (Giovanni Ribisi) who still seems to be able to drive a reasonable car (who pays for the fuel?) and live in what could be a nice apartment (who pays his rent?) Given the opportunity of forming what might have been some sort of meaningful relationship with what turned out to be a nice girl, he even blew that! Perhaps it was she (Lynn Collins) who earned this movie the 3 points! The fact that she works as a stripper rather than a hairdresser is one of the few aspects of this movie that makes sense ("I make as much in one night doing this as I do in two weeks' hairdressing").Unless you want to get depressed and bored to the teeth, forget it!

The Dog Problem is a smart love story of sorts with prefect comedy timing. I was overwhelmed on how excellent on every level this movie was. Scott Caan was already a proved actor. The Dog Problem showed his talents as not only a writer but a director to boot. Brilliant work! How does a gem of a movie like this with a talented everything fly under the radar of Hollywood? This movie is far superior to 90% of movies shown in theaters. The dog Spot was a scene stealer. The part of Spot walking with that song nobody walks in LA was funny. Scott Caan the story simple. Too many movies try to do too much. This a must see.

Let me start by saying I don't recall laughing once during this comedy. From the opening scene, our protagonist Solo (Giovanni Ribisi) shows himself to be a self-absorbed, feeble, and neurotic loser completely unable to cope with the smallest responsibilities such as balancing a checkbook, keeping his word, or forming a coherent thought. I guess we're supposed to be drawn to his fragile vulnerability and cheer him on through the process of clawing his way out of a deep depression. I guess we're supposed to sympathize as he stumbles through a series of misadventures seemingly triggered by his purchase of a dog, but in reality brought on by his own contemptible nature. I didn't get the slightest hint at any point that Solo ever possessed any redeeming character, which became disturbingly apparent when he failed to feed his dog for a few days. No spark of humanity or glimmer of conscience gave me hope that he would ever realize his life is so utterly miserable because he's a self- absorbed, self-pitying lowlife. I didn't develop any connection with this character. He didn't seem to care, and so neither did I. I actually wanted him to get his kneecaps busted at one point.The dog was not a character in the film. It was simply a prop to be used, neglected, scorned, abused, coveted and disposed of on a whim. So be warned. Even though "dog" is in the title, this film is not a romantic comedy for dog lovers.Scott Caan's role is amusing and believable as the oversexed best friend/cad. Don Cheadle is sincere and magnetic - I always want to see more of him on screen. Mena Suvari was delightfully repellent. Lynn Collins role of a "stripper with a heart" was well acted, but the character was simultaneously absurd and clichéd, not to mention there was zero chemistry between her and Ribisi.Romantic? Hardly. Comedy? If you say so.

Giovanni Ribisi should be well-known as a character actor by now, I'm not too certain his take on popular-consciousness. He is, however, very good at what he does, and the movies he's in are marked by low-budget storytelling (some call it "Indiewood") that focuses on character and dialog-driven writing rather than large-budget genre creations of the mainstream or thematic art-house sensibilities. Because of this, the types of films he's in are never really for a very big audience: they don't attract key demographics, they don't interest avant-gardists, they don't create international followings, they just sort of exist as nice stories. Thus, they're very hard to recommend because they don't technically offer anything new and they don't offer spectacle, and for that, "Indiewood" gets a lot of criticism. However, I think that these films need to be taken as they come, not as a movement itself, because honestly they are the pared-down narrative style which means it's the story itself that matters, not the relationship it has with the consumer.Ribisi plays a neurotic writer (think Woody Allen without trying to be Woody Allen) who, through a hint of his therapist, gets a dog. He hardly has time to figure out what owning a dog entails before people start asking him for it, and slowly he finds he has to defend himself and the dog from the onslaught, finding a girl and a life in the process.I like it because it has this continuous theme of names in it (the dog's name, people's first names, stripper names, etc.) and because it has a pretty concise approach to showing how each person is really just looking for love, which for some reason the ugly mutt represents to all of them. I think that a general audience looking for small-budget character-driven films would really like it. It also has a lot of witty, quotable dialog which, if this movie was bigger or more popular, would give it something like a "Napoleon Dynamite" status." --PolarisDiB