Movie Thoughts: Dog Gone (2023)

• Released: January 13th, 2023
  
• Directed by: Stephen Herek
• Running time: 1h 35min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A young man named Fielding adopts a dog named Gonker and they become inseparable. But then Gonker vanishes into the wild one day, and Fielding and his father set out on a quest to find the dog before time runs out, as Gonker needs a specific medication to survive.

My Thoughts

This one gets negative reviews but honestly...I kinda liked it? Yeah, it's a bit cringe and cheesy at times, I'm not denying that. But you can also clearly tell that the people behind this movie wanted to make a movie that showed the power of love between this young man and his dog and I think it succeeded. For the most part. 

The movie does have a bit of a "generic" issue in that it's pretty much every "lost dog" type of movie you've ever seen. Owner goes looking for the dog, dog tries to find his way back home, peaceful and happy reunion, the end. And it doesn't really do anything all that new with the concept, I'll say that much.

But I do like the focus on the human characters and their relationships. Fielding has an imperfect relationship with both of his parents, but you can still tell that they all love each other very much and they do really feel like a family. Especially the bond between Fielding and his father is well-developed. I also liked how they developed the mother's backstory with her having lost a dog of her own, making her now all the more motivated to help find Gonker.

I guess if I do have a criticism, it's that there could've been more focus on Gonker while he was gone. We barely see him except a few brief scenes, so I think his part of the journey finding Fielding again could've been expanded on a bit more.

Also, while I do genuinely believe that Fielding loves Gonker, I'd be lying if I said he was a very responsible dog owner. He barely trained the dog, always let him walk off-leash, and even allowed him to chase local wildlife which is not only irresponsible but also just mean-spirited and dangerous. You'd think that a character that's established as caring so much about this dog would treat his companion with a bit more care and caution than this.

But overall it's a solid enough movie. If you like dogs I'm sure you'll at least get something out of it.