When his beloved dog goes missing, a young man embarks on an incredible search with his parents to find him and give him life-saving medication. Based on a true story…
Rob Lowe, John Berchtold, Kimberly Williams-Paisley
Dog Gone feels like a film that we’ve all seen a thousand times before—it’s both a generic cute dog movie that’s trying to make you cry, and a by the books coming of age film that lacks all that much substance. Sometimes that isn’t necessarily detrimental to a film’s quality or entertainment value, but when there’s not quite enough of a charm or heart to it like the case is here, you can’t help but not become invested or care about what it is you’re watching on your screen.
Thus, Dog Gone falls in to the unfortunately growing catalogue of generic, boring, mediocre-to-bad Netflix original films that don’t seem to be going anywhere no matter how much we want them to. And on top of that, the film is aware of how cliche it’s re-telling of this honestly heartwarming true story, so it adds in multiple small subplots that feel largely inconsequential and—to put it as bluntly as possible—boring. There’s very little to cling on to for these characters, so outside of my personal dog-loving heart’s natural inclination to admire how cute the damn dog was (even though Gonker is the worst name I’ve ever heard) I didn’t care all too much about everyone else or what was happening plot-wise.
Not everything in Dog Gone is to be hated though, because there is some heart to be found here, despite it not being enough to prevent the film from being a below average time. Rob Lowe continues to be an incredibly likeable actor who does a decent job with what he’s given, and newcomer Johnny Berchtold is almost equally as enjoyable here.
Overall, I can’t quite say I hated Dog Gone, because there’s a slight amount of charm and likeable characters to be found, but it’s thin plot, thinner characters, and generic nature can’t stop it being a weak film. It’s not terrible, and many will find the opportunity to have fun with its adorable animal lover-curated storytelling, but when it’s been done so many times before in better ways, it’s hard to both differentiate it from the rest and like it as it’s own film.
