Dog Eat Dog (2016) - Review

Dog Eat Dog is a crime drama that focuses on a trio of ne'er-do-wells that find themselves in the middle of a high-risk kidnapping situation gone wrong in the Cleveland area. Troy (Cage), Mad Dog (Willem Defoe) and Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook) comprise a group of ex-cons who rely on small-time underworld jobs in a world they don't recognize anymore. Every action they take is colored by their desperation to stay out of prison and their unwillingness to steer away from the lifestyle that brought them there in the first place. 

There is no one that you are rooting for in this film; the anticipation for the score to go wrong and how the three are going to get out of the situation carries the film to its disjointed conclusion. These characters are unabashedly racist, and each have their own flaws with how they interact with women - Troy is a hopeless romantic,  Mad Dog has a penchant for chasing foreign women for self gratification, and Diesel, who seems the most normal in this department yet still has prison trauma that hampers his ability to connect with other people. The opening scene with Defoe's Mad Dog is a prelude to the unhinged nature of the rest of the movie, where loyalty and trust are positioned as absolutes that shouldn't be infringed but are never guaranteed.

It's tough to pin down whether I liked this movie. I didn't mind the outlandish nature of events - it was almost enjoyable at points as a piece of parody as the movie rides the line of shock and comedy. But that is where I praise the tone, the rest of my criticism isn't as nice. As the conclusion comes into view, the movie seems to attempt to lean into that absurdity while failing to account for the themes that were so prominent. The ending forsakes anything that brought it to that point while trying to put a square peg in a round hole, trying to call back to an earlier point of dialogue. The movie never finds its footing as it wanders through mud and sinks further and further down to mediocrity despite Cage and Defoe giving it their all.