I just love Australian movies! The sceneries, the people, their laconic humour ... everything! Here's a heart-warming tale for every man and his dog:
Based on a true story, the film is set in the mining town of Dampier in the Pilbara where the real Red Dog lived in the 1970s, so endearing himself to those who knew him that his exploits have achieved the status of legend. A bronze statue honours his memory and his fame was further enhanced in the late 1990s when the British novelist Louis de Bernieres (the one of "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" fame) arrived on an author tour and stuck around long enough to hear some of the Red Dog stories. Two years later he was back for more and the result was a novella published in 2002.
Perth producer Nelson Woss (Ned Kelly) picked up the rights and Australian director Kriv Stenders and American screenwriter Dan Taplitz have worked de Bernieres's vignettes into an engaging movie about a town where red dust is such an indelible feature of the landscape that a red kelpie risks invisibility. Not that this happens to Red Dog, an animal intent on making an impression wherever he goes. He's just as dogmatic, so to speak, about the company he keeps. An intrepid hitchhiker, he has to approve of the driver before he'll accept the lift.
Not everyone is a dog-lover, however, and the film's opening scenes have him in serious trouble.
He's been poisoned by a strychnine bait and while the vet is doing his best, the prognosis is grim. As they keep vigil, the miners of Dampier and their families reminisce about their friend for the benefit of Tom (Luke Ford), a visitor. So the flashbacks begin.
He arrived, we learn, with Jack the publican (Noah Taylor) and his wife, Maureen (Loene Carmen). They tell of having found him on the highway, waiting for the right travelling companions. Deciding that they'll do, he leaps into their car while they're still wondering where he's from and he doesn't look back. His inquiring gaze proves an instant hit and it's not long before half the miners in town have adopted him as a confidante - privy to all the secrets they're too macho to share with anybody on two legs.
Tone is all-important in a film as determinedly good-natured as this one. Make it too cute and the result is a very shaggy dog story. But Stenders keeps up a jaunty rhythm with a lot of help from his editor, Jill Bilcock, together with a soundtrack full of 1970s hits and a cast who all look as if they're having a great time. Setting the pace is Arthur Angel as Vanno, an Italian miner who has been banned from further boring his workmates with his effusions about the beauties of his home in Abruzzi. He turns to Red Dog and finds an instant cure for his homesickness in his unblinking and uncritical gaze. For a while, he cherishes the illusion that he's made the dog his own. But it's only when John (Josh Lucas) arrives in town from the US to become the bus driver that Red Dog finally chooses a master.
A star is born. And for once he's a redhead.
