Last of the Dogmen

This is one of the best movies of its kind that I have ever seen. I am Northern Cheyenne and the premise of the movie is based, I believe, on the legend of the Lost band of Suthai ( a Cheyenne band) I particularly enjoyed seeing Eugene Black Bear (the old Cheyenne Chief) Eugene is a Cheyenne and a Sundance Priest in real life. The Cheyenne language was spoken well and accurately. I would enjoy seeing a sequel to this film.

HG Wells once recommended that writers of 'fantastic fiction' choose to break only one rule per story, to avoid stretching their readers willful suspension of disbelief to breaking. _Last of the Dogmen_ proves how well a story based on an implausible premise (traditional Cheyenne surviving in the mountains with their culture intact) can work if everything else is kept real. The action is realistic, and the characters are drawn honestly and allowed to behave in a natural, realistic manner.

As others have pointed out, it's a quiet little story as these stories go, and it's also one of Berenger's better performances; I feel as though I should bird-dog this director, because all the principles turn in good, nuanced work.

I recommend this movie as light or even moderate fare, with something for both romantics and adventurers.

(Curiously, as far as I can recall, the title is never explained in the film. 'Cheyenne' is a French corruption of a Blackfoot or Arikara word meaning "dog people", for the dogs the Cheyenne once used in preference to horses to haul their household goods between camps. The leading Cheyenne warrior society eventually adopted the name "dog men" or "dog soldiers" in defiance. The survivors depicted here would be the descendents of a dog soldier group and their families.)

This movie reminds me a lot of "Lost Horizon". The scenery is beautiful and anyone that's ever been up in that area can attest to it. It's both a chick flick and a guy's movie because of the great mix of emotion, excitement and action. A couple of things in the movie are a little hard to swallow, but so are a lot of things in James Bond or Indiana Jones pic's, and it never stopped anyone from liking them. Tape it or rent it if you haven't seen it, you won't be disappointed.

Sometimes when you're stuck in a hotel room, on a rainy day, your movie viewing options are severely limited. You have to take what you can and so it was that I took in "Last of the Dogmen" more than a quarter century after its release.

It quickly becomes clear that this isn't some forgotten classic but it's not a straight to cable clunker either. Instead it's a workmanlike affair that combines the lone bounty hunter with something of a paean to a lost time when real Native American tribes roamed the western states. The latter angle emerges when we discover that somehow actual Indians are still living in the mountains, apart from the modern era, and circumstances are conspiring to expose their existence.

What's particularly nice about the film is that it doesn't stray much from this core story. There isn't some epic romance, apart from with Nature, but there could be. Equally the central protagonist doesn't make any grand speeches, and he's neither good nor bad, but his actions speak for him. The outside world also isn't portrayed as particularly malevolent but more somewhat less than careful.

This is all great but somehow the arrival of the lost tribe just isn't as awesome as you would expect. They are suspicious of course but they don't feel especially alien and like refugees from the past. Instead they become comfortable with the strangers very quickly and their existence causes barely a ripple. It's a shame because the moment of contact could have been delivered with real impact.

So there's plenty to like with "Last of the Dogmen" and it's definitely worth your time should you stumble across it. But is it worth making a special effort to enjoy? Probably not unless you really fancy a story that doesn't try to be all things to everyone. It sticks to the script and there's nothing wrong with that.

If you can get past the premise, this is a really good movie. It has all of the elements you could ask for. The cinematography is stunning. After seeing this movie, I started looking at real estate in Banff. There is romance with good and believable chemistry between the leads, well done and believable conflict between Gates and his father in law, humor, commentary on the American West in the form of a moral lecture, and the initial conflict between the two Alpha males that turns to respect and then friendship.

The unlikely star of the movie is really the dog; I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it will make you want to get a dog like that.

My favorite and most disturbing scene is the dream sequence. For better or worse, you can actually see our bloody history with the Indians playing out all over again. That perhaps is the most striking thing about this movie: You can really imagine that perhaps we have not moved forward as a society or culture when it comes to dealing with anything that we do not understand or refuse to learn about.