The title character in Dog Man is a man with a dog’s head. The product of improvised emergency surgery after a bomb squad mishap, he serves as a police officer in a generic city called “OK City.” Dog Man’s nemesis is a villainous cat named Petey; their ongoing relationship consists of Dog Man repeatedly capturing Petey, and Petey repeatedly escaping from jail.
This goes on agreeably enough until Petey decides to up the ante by cloning himself, but his clone, Li’l Petey, turns out to be kitten-aged and guileless, and somehow ends up being mentored by Dog Man. Somehow all this leads to a clash with Flippy, a revived dead fish, buildings brought to anthropomorphic life, shifting loyalties, backstories revealed, etc.
It’s an adaptation from a book series written and illustrated by Dav Pilkey, who already achieved world conquest with his Captain Underpants books. Scripted and directed by Peter Hastings – who also voices our hero’s spirited barks, whimpers, growls and howls – it’s an exuberant exercise in nonsense, with snappy, surgically executed gags.
The action draws on sources ranging from Star Wars to The Warriors to Die Hard to pro wrestling to the kaiju films. But more than any specific influence, Dog Man seems to be trying to reproduce the headlong creativity and inventiveness of a kid playing. You want buildings to come to life? Just use “Living Spray.”
Among the voices are Ricky Gervais (as the fish), Lil Rey Howery, Isla Fisher, Stephen Root, Cheri Oteri and many other vets. But it’s Pete Davidson, as the nefarious Petey, who gives a true star performance with his voice. He brings remarkable subtlety and shading to the character, and even manages to be a little bit touching.
The slapstick sequences in One of Them Days aren’t nearly as precise as those in Dog Man. Most of them are wearisomely heavy-handed or gross-out schticks in the contemporary comedy manner. But this modest movie, directed by Lamont Lawrence from a script by Syreeta Singleton, is endearing anyway, because it’s an old-school buddy comedy, and a portrait of a community.
Dreux (Keke Palmer) is a hard-working, ambitious server at a Norms Restaurant in L.A. Her best friend and roommate Alyssa (SZA), is a painter with a more relaxed, lackadaisical manner, plus a sponging, two-timing boyfriend, Keshawn (Joshua Neal).
With characteristic judgement, Alyssa has given this fellow the money to pay the rent, and he’s failed to pass it on to the inflexible landlord. So Dreux and Alyssa have only a few hours to come up with the money and avoid eviction, not to mention evading both Keshawn’s scary other girlfriend (Aziza Scott) and a local gangster (Amin Joseph), and getting Dreux to her interview to become a franchise manager on time.
It’s been a while since I can remember an old-fashioned “You must pay the rent” movie. Some of the wacky adventures our heroines have on this quest, which range from selling their own blood to scaling a telephone pole to retrieve a pair of valuable Air Jordans dangling from the lines, are funny enough, while others fall flat. Maybe the best comes when they consider a payday loan, and a homeless guy called Lucky (Nicky Katt) desperately warns them against going into the place, like Elijah warning Ishmael and Queequeg not to sign aboard the Pequod.
But the relative success or failure of the gags doesn’t matter much; this movie’s charm derives from the sweet connection between the two leads, with their constant mild bickering and its palpable undercurrent of support and love. It’s also an affectionate look at the neighborhood and its residents, like the middle-aged lady (Vanessa Bell Calloway) who seems to be running a convenience store out of her apartment, or the hairdresser (DeWayne Perkins) whose services are wheedled and quarreled for like contraband.
Beyond all of this, One of Them Days, like Dog Man, even carries a whisper of the poignant. Singleton’s script touches on the struggles that people in lower socioeconomic classes have with getting ahead, of breaking the cycle of being short on money, no matter how hard they try. Best of all, while it touches on this, it stays funny.
