Dog Eat Dog (2008)

Thanks for the memories!

Excellent but underrated film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I don't think this movie is a rip off of No country for old men or of The Departed, i do agree with the fact that this movie is not the South American "Amores Perros", nor do i think that is the movie that will launch Colombian film industry to success. I think that's exaggerated. I do think some actors overact like "El Orejon" (Blas Jaramillo). Nonetheless i don't believe like others that this is a bad movie, on the contrary i think that looking and comparing it with other Colombian films it's probably one of the best. I don't think the intention of the writer/director was for us to empathize with the characters, like somebody said it's more a movie of atmospheres and i think that is the way the story plot is narrated rather than the story itself. Is more the form and structure than the content; the story turns around two main characters: Luna Negra (Oscar Borda) and Peñaranda (Marlon Moreno), and around the way the sensationalist journal "El Caleño" retakes an element of the plot and presents it to the public as something that has already happened but that the characters who read it don't even suspect that they are involved in it one way or the other, sometimes neither those the viewer. This is something that goes unnoticed for many viewers of the film. And the other element is the man who's always calling to the motel room asking for a woman who isn't there, we believe this is just some kind of joke but it has a consequence in the end. Another interesting thing are the two main characters, one which is cursed by a voodoo sorceress which uses a picture of him in a glass with a millipedes that crushes the picture as a symbol of what's going to happen to him. You can see how the character's condition deteriorates throughout the film, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the vision of his victim drowning in the sewer, and the way his little donut-like anti-stress object is dragged mysteriously by the sewer. The other character, Peñaranda, is the "street-dog" who thinks his more clever than the "mobster-pedigree-dog" and who thinks he's going to get along untouched with his plan. The end of the film is somewhat predictable, a way of saying that crime doesn't pay

Whoa, whoa!!! Stop the horses... Saying that "Perro Come Perro" is kind of Tarantino's or Ritchie's work might have, it's the biggest lie on earth. I'm from Colombia too, but... sincerely: leave aside the stupid patriotism. I've seen this movie with other titles before... it's nothing new, but it's not bad at all... The only point it's worth to enhance is the direction of Carlos Moreno... it's methodical and creative. The screenplay has a lot of clichés and flaws, the worst one is the Adela situation... that's a popular joke turn into a movie... the violence it's free of charge and I'm not talking about the chainsaw scene... this is not so graphic like the one in Scarface, man... the actors, I don't know... either of them don't bring it out for a nomination of anything. Anyone could have done that parts the same way and nobody sees the difference. The music is good, Superlitio sounds strong and cool in the soundtrack... At the end, with Perro Come Perro, you can go to the movies to hang out and eat some popcorn.

When the ending titles of "Perro come perro" came out, movies like "The Long Good Friday", "Once upon a time in America" and "Cidade de deus" came to my mind. This film is made with the same artistry, the same dark humor and specially with the same approach to criminal life.Great character development, accomplished cinematography and a clear understanding of the Cali underworld are some of the qualities this movie brings to the viewer.This movie is for Cali what "Snatch" was for London and it works so well.Of course there are some flaws, but this movie is such and acomplishment that you can let them go.A breath of fresh air for Colombian Cinema and the "Dago-Formula" that comes every year.My deepest congratulations to the crew of "PCP", you've made a mark in Colombian Cinema History.

"Perro come perro", alias "Dog Eat Dog", has been announced as a groundbreaking feature film in Colombian cinema, mainly for being a participant in Sundance Festival 2008. I even got to read a review saying that it would be the next "Amores Perros" of South America and that it marked a new period for Colombian cinema. As an openminded person who loves cinema, I was very much persuaded of seeing the film for the positive reviews: I definitely expected a whole lot more of what I got to see on the screen. Those propagandistic reviews are the motivation behind this personal commentary.PCP is seriously flawed in many ways. We may start on the overacting of most of the cast. Now then, if it hadn't been for the superficial way in which the themes were dealt with, the spectators could have empathised with at least something; but there's no space for empathy to happen. On the contrary, the supposed seriousness of the main characters' problems is ludicrous.The plot in itself is quite straightforward: it's a film based more on atmospheres than on actions. If the movie fails to portray a plausible atmosphere is because of its overdirecting. Without any relevant plot twists and several obvious elements, it tries to appeal in any available form to the audience, even resulting in ridiculous comic relief situations. The soundtrack (original music) and title sequence seem like made for another kind of movie. The 'over the top' post-production (colour correction, editing, sound design) only makes us too aware of the directorial efforts to be innovative. Let's face it: if you're going to do "another" Colombian-violence related-gangster film, try at least not to step on the abundant clichés available for the genre. Instead we get to see a handful of badly used cinematic resources within a weak story.Besides the flaws aforementioned, what I least liked is its thematic emptiness. There are so many pointless situations!! This is made especially annoying with some exaggerated gratuitous violence scenes. All in all, I never got the point of the film (not the story, which is far too simple). What I mean is that it doesn't really say anything new or interesting about the topic, nor it has a cinematic proposal that would rescue the film from being a commonplace empty gangster-sicario movie, as what it really is.