"You can kill almost anyone else." Show Rest easy, dog lovers: The canine at the center of the movie Dog does not die. In fact, when co-director and star Channing Tatum set out to make the film with longtime friend and Magic Mike collaborator Reid Carolin, they ruled out doggy deaths from the jump. "We love dogs over here," Tatum tells EW. "It's one of those things, no one really wants one of those movies. I think that's one of those deadly sins... kill the one thing that everyone loves in a movie. Just don't kill the dog — you can kill almost anyone else." The buddy comedy follows the wild adventure of Army Ranger Briggs (Tatum), who is tasked with taking the legendarily difficult pooch Lulu on a road trip so she can attend the funeral of her handler (and fellow soldier). Lulu — played in the film by three Belgian Malinois dogs named Lana, Britta, and Zuza — shares a name with and is loosely inspired by the relationship between Tatum and his late, beloved pitbull-Catahoula mix who passed away in 2018. "[It's] the themes and the feeling — it's more the bond and the relationship that Lulu and I had. I had her from the time that she was six weeks old. She was like my child, my shadow — she was everything. And this is a very, very, very different story," Tatum explains. Although the plot doesn't mirror his real-life experience, and Lulu's onscreen persona is different from his own dog's, there's one scene in particular that sweetly reminded the star of his furry best friend. The moment involves Briggs and Lulu taking a pit stop on the side of the road. After relieving themselves, Lulu runs off. When she returns, she has bird feathers in her mouth. "My Lulu was a hunting dog and I don't hunt, so she never got to really exercise that part of her DNA like she was probably born to do. So anything that wasn't a dog or like five times bigger than her, she'd want to take it down [like in the film]," he says. Channing Tatum Channing Tatum in 'Dog' | Credit: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/MGM Naturally, when your costar is a living, breathing animal, things are bound to go awry — like the time Tatum's character was supposed to wrestle a toy away from the dog, and part of the toy fell out mid-take and hit him so hard that he ended up with seven stitches in his face. Even still, Tatum jokes that any real errors came from him and not the pups. "I don't think a dog can really mess up a take, personally. Because a dog is just being purely a dog, so it can't physically mess up the take. We are asking it to be a dog, that's about it. And we're trying to craft the world around the thing so it can just honestly be itself." He adds, "So I'm sure I messed up almost everything." Between co-directing with Carolin, starring, and working with the canines in just about every scene in the film, Tatum did not make his first time as a helmer easy or straightforward — which is probably why he feels he doesn't really deserve credit for it. "Just to be really frank about it, I don't really feel like I directed it," he admits with a laugh. "I really think that like I directed the dog and Reid directed me. I don't know if I've directed my first movie really." His modesty aside, the film presented all kinds of logistical challenges for the first-time directors, from time and money constraints to the aforementioned problems with wrangling dogs for an entire movie. "We thought we were making a really good decision," Tatum says of the film. "We were just like, 'Oh, it will be a really small little movie, really contained — me, a dog, in a car, on a road trip — small, little, attainable movie.' And then cut to it's one of the hardest possible movies to go and try to make." He continues, "It started off with a really clear intention that we loved this idea of surrender and we tried to capture it in this very small story." And, at the end of the day, the star says he doesn't know if it was a "smart decision," but ultimately, "I'm proud of the movie that we made." In addition to Tatum, Dog — which is now in theaters — also stars Jane Adams, Kevin Nash, Q'orianka Kilcher, Ethan Suplee, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Nicole LaLiberté, Luke Forbes, and Ronnie Gene Blevins. Carolin wrote the screenplay with a story by him and Brett Rodriguez. For more with Tatum, check out the full video above. Related content:
 If he thought about it, Briggs (Channing Tatum) might believe that the injuries from his service as an Army Ranger have taken everything he had and everything he needed. But he does not think about it. Despite his doctor’s warnings that he has some permanent impairment, he's determined to get back into the Rangers. Service gives him structure, purpose, fellowship, and enough adrenaline to not have to think about the many things he doesn't want to think about, including how much more there is still to lose. Briggs needs sign-off from an officer to be readmitted to the Rangers, who call themselves “the Army's premier direct-action raid force.” He has been repeatedly turned down. Finally, an officer says he will authorize Briggs’ reinstatement if he will perform one task, delivering an Army dog to the funeral of a veteran who served with Briggs. The dog is Lulu, a sweet-faced Belgian Malinois who performed many brave rescue operations, but who now is so severely traumatized from being in a war zone that no one can go near her. She has sent three people to the emergency room and been deemed un-salvageable. Until the funeral, she is muzzled and on Prozac. After the funeral, she is scheduled to be put down. Briggs, who has said he would do anything to get back into the service, does not want to do this. “You’re asking me to take a dog on a plane to Arizona?” The officer responds, “I’m asking you to drive a Ranger to a funeral.” The dog is too unstable to fly; indeed, Briggs is warned not to let her near any person or animal. But if Briggs can deliver Lulu with no mistakes and no trouble, he can get the approval he needs. Of course, there will be mistakes and there will be trouble on the road from Oregon to Arizona by way of Los Angeles. There will also be connections from the past, both in person and via an extensive, heartfelt, and very detailed notebook kept by Lulu’s Ranger handler. Tatum the actor responds exceptionally well to Tatum the co-director (along with co-screenwriter Reid Carolin, both directing a feature for the first time). In his previous films, Tatum has mostly relied on his natural all-American charm, a boy-we’d-like-to-have-next-door combination of confident strength and self-deprecating humor. We have seen him unhappy and under stress but almost always as a character who keeps those feelings hidden. Here we see his range, with more vulnerability than he has shown on screen before. Briggs tries his utmost to hide his struggle from everyone, including himself. But Tatum lets us see it, without consideration for movie star vanity. Carolin and Tatum play it safe in some other choices, though, with too many sun flares and postcard-pretty shots of the beautiful western countryside and some on-the-nose song selections for the soundtrack. We do not need to hear Kenny Rogers singing “The Gambler” again; when it comes to that song, it is time to fold ‘em. One of the stops on the road trip is in Portland, and the tired jokes about too-twee Portlandia-ness and Briggs’ efforts to adapt in order to get laid wear thin fast. What we’re there to see is two wounded warriors, one human, one canine, heal each other, and that works well. There are some surprising detours along the way, with some characters more interesting than the crunchy Portlandians. The always-welcome Jane Adams brings her delicate sensibility to a character who could easily have been caricatured. Interactions with two other vets also benefit from thoughtful performances. Both Briggs and Lulu learn that the skills they relied on in the military might need to be un-learned, or at least kept in check. Lulu knocks down a man in a hotel lobby only because he is wearing Middle Eastern robes. Briggs learns that perhaps you don’t enter someone’s property the way you enter enemy territory, even if you think your dog might be there. They also learn that those skills can have some value in a civilian life, as long as Briggs and Lulu learn to think differently about what they are trying to accomplish with them. “Dog” is uneven in tone and quality but shows promise in the way Tatum and Carolin approach the story with care and heart. It leaves us optimistic for the future ahead for the wounded warriors and for the people who told their story. Now playing in theaters.
Nell MinowNell Minow is the Contributing Editor at RogerEbert.com. Now playingFilm CreditsDog (2022)Rated PG-13 for language, thematic elements, drug content and some suggestive material. 101 minutes Latest blog posts
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about 10 hours ago CommentsIs there anything sad in the movie dog?While “Dog” is often funny, it's not a comedy. Though it's often sad, it's not a tragedy either. Instead, it's a sensitive, engaging, realistic look at what happens when a soldier's toughest battle starts when they come home.
What's the ending of the movie dog?He attends the funeral together with Lulu and then goes to the military facility to hand over the canine. Just then, he had a change of heart. He didn't feel right giving her up. He goes back and takes Lulu with him.
What's the saddest dog movie?Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2010)
It's officially the saddest dog film you can watch - with twice as many reviewers mentioning crying compared to its closest rival. It's based on the true story of a dog who would travel to the station every day to wait for its owner.
Does Lulu get put down in the movie dog?No, Lulu does not die in Dog and that is a decision Channing Tatum decided on from the start. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Tatum explained how nobody wants to see the dog die in any film: “We love dogs over here. It's one of those things, no one really wants one of those movies.
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