Story of Cheyenne warriors misses mark

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Review

Last of the Dogmen

Directed by Tab Murphy

A Savoy Pictures release

It is billed as a contemporary romantic-adventure film. A feisty female anthropologist (Barbara Hershey) and a crusty modern day bounty hunter (Tom Berenger), join forces to search out the lost tribe of the Cheyenne, dog soldiers whose ancestors, more than 100 years earlier, had escaped into the mountainous region of the Oxbow in Montana, the only survivors of the 1864 massacre of Sand Creek.

Dogmen have always been presumed dead, but in this story the group not only survived but thrived. Out of reach of the white man and modern society, the Dogmen are a people living history, unchanged, unsullied, their culture in tact.

With a premise such as this, it would seem like Dogmen should have all the makings of a great film. It doesn't. While there is much in this film that is good, there is more that detracts. Sometimes this movie is fun. Often it is beautiful, breathtaking, in fact. But mostly, this movie is slow, plodding and ultimately disappointing.

Dogmen attempts to pay homage to a vanishing culture while providing a place in time for two people (Berenger and Hershey) to come together in love and wonder. Berenger describes the movie's main characters as two cantankerous loners thrown together, attracted to each other, yet unable to live with one another.

In reality, this relationship never heats up to the point of even a low boil. We're left unconvinced of the couple's passionate love at film's end. Add to this a storyline so thin that the slightest breeze could blow a hole through it.

There are some things in this film to applaud. There's Zip, the faithful dog that accompanies the couple on their adventure and has all the best shtick in the movie.

According to the production's promotional material, Zip was found in a city pound the day he was supposed to be put down. Lucky for Zip, he was saved. Luckier still for the movie makers.

There is also the cinematography. This film will probably go down in history as the best advertising vehicle the Province of Alberta has ever seen. Filmmakers chose locations throughout the Canadian Rocky Mountains, in Canmore, Banff, and Lake Louise.

Then there's Helen Calahasen, an Alberta actress appearing as the wife of Yellow Wolf, leader of the Dogmen. Calahasen was on hand for the Sept. 6 screening of Dogmen in Edmonton. It was her first time seeing the film in its entirety.

Calahasen's role is a small one, but when she appears on screen she is poised and beautiful. Steve Reevis plays Yellow Wolf, the quiet and intense Cheyenne warrior.