Dogboys (1998 TV Movie) User Reviews

Do you know what you are? A f*cked up guard who kills cons? You maybe able to get away with that in Australia... but not over here.

[lastliberal · 6/10 · 22 November 2008]

Well Clark Kent is going to need all his skills to stay alive in this one.

Dean Cain ("Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman") is an ex-Marine that loves to fight, and it gets him in prison training dogs to chase after prisoners who try to escape. His buddy Willy B (Richard Chevolleau) we soon learn is trying to find out what's really going on. He is working for the super hot DA Jennifer Dern, played by the super hot Tia Carrere, whom I haven't seen since Wayne's World. Maybe I'll try to find a copy of Zombie Nightmare to see how she does in horror.

But, that's another story, here she is trying to enlist Cain's help to catch the evil Capt. Brown, played by Bryan Brown (Australia, "The Thorn Birds", FX), who has a scam going on the order of Emil Fouchon in Hard Target.

Not a great script, typically "B", but some good nasty-dog-on-man action, and a great pair exposed in the Warden's (Ken James) strip poker game as the hot DA comes running to rescue Cain once she figures out what is going on. Ah, but she doesn't know everything, yet.

Your Dead Meat Dogboy!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 17 February 2009]

**SPOILERS** Muddled story about just what's going on behind th scenes in this prison camp in the deep south. Which in fact was actually filmed in the Canadian wilds. The camp is run by a number of psycho's who use human beings, or prisoners, for making themselves rich. It's when ex-US Marine Julian Taylor, Dean Cain, is incarcerated in the "Retrieve" that things start to turn sour for the bad guys in the movie! Who for the most part aren't the convicts but those who are in charge of guarding them!

As we soon find out both the camp Warden Adam Wakefield, Ken James, and his top aid Captain Robert Brown, Bryan Brown, use prisoners as if their wild animals. Wakefield & Brown use the prisoners, like in the movie "The Most Dangerous Game", by setting them loose to be hunted down and killed, from a safe distance, by rich and prominent citizens in the community who pay big buck to do it. It's when an undercover Treasury Agent-who shall remain nameless-gets the info on Warden Wakefield & Captain Brown's operations that he's dispatched by having Captain Brown's prize tracking German Shepherd Clyde do him in. Sniffing around the "Doghouse" or the "Dogboy" compound the agent got locked in the dog holding cage. It's then that Clyde was set loose, by someone out of camera range, and attacked the startled G-Man and ended up tearing him to pieces.

With Taylor uncovering evidence, while cleaning up the mess that Clyde left, he becomes not only a target for both Captain Brown and Warden Wakefield in preventing him from exposing their murderous operations but the Treasury Agent's boss assistant D.A Jenniffer Dern, Tia Carrere. D.A Dern needs Taylor to get the goods on both Wakefield & Brown but Taylor, not wanting to make waves, is only interested in serving his time at the "Retrieve" and get out in one piece! That's of course if both Wakefield and Brown allow him to do that!

You get the usual heroics that you would expect in a made for TV movie like "Dogboys" or "Tracked" with the added surprise of having the at first mousy and studious looking Tia Carrera let her hair down as well as take, some not all, of her clothes off which starts liven things up. This allows those of us in the audience, as well as convict Julian Taylor, to really start to appreciate Tia as a pin-up girl instead of, which was dead pan and unconvincing, her acting.

***SPOILER ALERT*** Being the greedy and back stabbing low-lives that they are both Wakefield and Brown together with their blood thirsty hunting from a safe distant client Cletes, Robert Collins, end up doing the work that the US Justice department is paid to do: Putting themselves out of business and behind bars or six feet under. The most sympathetic of these crumb's the head of the "Dogboy Unit" or "Doghouse" Pappy, Sean McCann, gets suddenly religious in trying to prevent his boss Captain Brown for gunning down Taylor in cold blood. For that one righteous act Pappy, a convicted murderer, ends up paying with his life.

The movie is worth watching for the action scenes and actor Cain's Julian Taylor the former, in the movie, US Marine light-heavyweight champ very professional looking boxing ability. And of course there's also actress Tia Carrera who makes you forget, in the scenes that she's in, just how bad the movie really is.

Amateurish and embarrassing dross!

[uds3 · 20 December 2002]

What was Bryan Brown thinking? Well actually, one can get a fair idea judging from his one-dimensional and weak-as-water role-playing in a career of so many highlights. COCKTAIL deserved an Oscar nomination besides this.

Made for TV/Cable...perhaps even some film student's work experience program, this total rip-off of HARD TARGET/THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME and others, is beyond analysis. Tia Carrere looks ambarrassed to be there and Dean Cain confirms his casting as TV's Superman was a one-off "accident"......some might say, "waiting to happen" as is evidenced here.

Did anyone notice the Director here? None other than Ken Russell of WOMEN IN LOVE, THE DEVILS, THE MUSIC LOVERS, ALTERED STATES and GOTHIC fame? What freak of destiny one wonders, brought him to "direct" this atrocity? (and I use the term loosely!)

Shot on what looks suspiciously like video-tape,I cannot recall a more amateurish and totally unprofessional piece of cinematic flotsam! It would appear to have been shot over a long weekend so that Russell could get the last plane home to the UK, presumably for a decent breakfast!

Terrible

[erzuliedantor · 2/10 · 4 January 2005]

Quick summary: it's about inmates who are responsible for training the dogs that hunt escaped convicts. I can't blame either Brian Brown or Dean Cain for being in this film, but I can blame Ken Russell for not making it well. Usual prison stuff but on a restricted budget and modest acting from the two above actors.

One scene contained standard prison bullies picking on a bloke double their size and with a bad temper. It just didn't work. You also have an 'older and wiser' inmate which seems to be standard stock for films such as these. Worst character must be the 'Jamaican' - one of the worst accents I've heard.

I suppose this is one for either Brian Brown or Dean Cain fans. You may wince through it, though. I found it agonising and I couldn't make it to the end.

Excellent

[tricia-16 · 9/10 · 5 November 1999]

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I thought that Dean Cain played the part very well. The script was not that good but Dean made the most of the part he played. Just looking at him was enough for me.Mind you i am a total Dean Cain addict and he is just great in everything he is in. Showed that he can play other parts just as well as Clark Kent. Tia Carrere played her part well but i am afraid that i thought Bryan Brown was awful.

Rerun

[eman_mccc · 2 November 2001]

For the younger generation out there who have seen this movie, it is essentially a remake of Mean Dog Blues, a 1970s George Kennedy movie. It's been updated a bit, with a slightly different story line, but the core is the same. As with most movies, I prefer the original. It's the same here.