I have been a little negligent as of late, keeping up with my posts as quickly as possible after seeing the movie. This post comes four days after I saw this great family film, and I am sorry I can't do more to promote the movie and save it from the discard pile that it appears to be headed for. Mark Wahlburg and a dog should be a sure thing for most family audiences, but I suspect that the sports based setting may not be as interesting to people on the big screen, since they see this weekly on their televisions.
Frankly, I am a sucker for a dog movie. It is probably a good idea for me to create an inventory of films I have covered on the site that feature a canine co-star. A couple of years ago, Channing Tatum made his directorial debut with a dog film, simply named "Dog". I liked that one quite well and it would make a good companion film for this movie. Both feature dogs that have some health and psychological issues, but one is a straight drama while this movie is an adventure film as well. There are some beautiful scenes of a race around the jungles of the Dominican Republic, but I did end up worrying about current events in Haiti, which shares the island with the setting of this movie.
Wahlburg plays a long time race figure, who while widely respected, has never come in first in the grueling endurance challenges that these races present. After a humiliating loss, and a two year break, he attempts to return to competition, but his resources are low and sponsors are wary. As we watch him struggle to put together a team for the race, we also see a street dog, struggling to survive in the third world nation, frequently abused and usually starving. The back and forth between these two stories is a nice parallel which pays off in the second half of the movie. When the race starts, the two characters come together in a surprising way, and it would be nearly impossible to buy it, if it had not really happened. 
The race presents dramatic challenges, and the dog is included in these as the progress deepens. There are a lot of tense scenes and some lighter moments with the dog. The two both make sacrifices for each other, and at the end, the race results become less important than the survival story of a man's hope in a dog's lifeforce. Having recently lost a beloved pet, there were moments in the last act of the film, that I was not prepared for and which evoked some strong emotional responses from me. Even without this personal history, I think the turn that the film takes will be an emotional wallop for most audiences. In the long run, the less you know about the real story, the stronger the conclusion of this film will play.
Mark Wahlburg has become a very reliable actor, and his presence in a film like this makes the story work. Unfortunately, it looks like the audience is missing out on this, probably bad marketing decisions about the release date, and the fact that streaming is going to eat all of these kinds of movies alive in the next few years. Look, this will work on your television, but like most films, it will work better in a theater, and you should go see it now before it gets pushed off of the screens by whatever is coming next week.
