The cover of 'Dog Run' pronounced it came from the maker of 'Kids', the NY real life drama about a bunch of truly screwed young kids (naturally, I enjoyed it). Seriously though, Kids had good acting, and an alternative angle to story telling than most other movies. So when I saw 'Dog Run' I was intrigued. Once again the story is set in NY. It revolves around the friendship of two guys, who have come to the big city to deal drugs. They are quickly screwed over by their dealer and find themselves with no money in a strange city. The theme of friendship runs deep in the movie, not only that of Eddie and Miles, but the betrayal of their dealer friend, and the youths they join in with in the city. Through the movie Eddie and Miles separate further and further. Eddie, with his girlfriend Tara, goes deeper into a world of heroin addiction while Miles moves on from homelessness with his new girlfriend and gets a job. Through this separation you see the trials of friendship when drugs and adolescence are involved.
Both of these characters develop really well throughout the movie, Miles especially. He goes through a transition concerning Eddie, drugs and his father. Craig DePlessis is hopefully an actor with a good career in front of him.
The ties to "Kids" are immediately apparent in the cinematography. The low - budget doco - style of the film is very similar. In this way it is similar to Blair Witch in that the camera is very shaky and nothing at all like regular movie production footage. More like a home video. The style is fantastically suited to this type of movie though because it shows the grit and realism that the movie is trying to get across.
Like "Kids" and "Gummo" (that was one nasty, nasty movie - America is one f**ked up place) "Dog Run" will quite brazenly shock but it does portray a better story than both of these previous movies and definitely worth watching if you can stomach a bit of harsh viewing material.
