'Dogman' (2018) – Matteo Garrone.

Like a nihilistic, anti-'Of Mice and Men', Matteo Garrone's 'Dogman' is an unflinchingly tough, brutalist character study of two disparate men bound in an increasingly toxic partnership. While the diminutive, Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is a doting father and a meticulous, empathic dog-groomer, he is also a small time drug dealer who becomes fatefully dominated by hulking halfwit hoodlum, the neighbourhood terrorizing tyrant, Simone(Edoardo Pesce). Foolhardily running risky errands for, Simone whose forceful demands for free cocaine escalates to violence. The amiable, Marcello, once a jocular, well liked member of the close-nit working-class community is ostracized due to his ill-judged servitude to the vile, bullish, psychotically larcenous thug. Without a shred of humanity, Simone continues to cruelly subjugate the weaker, misguided Marcello, quite literally keeping him under his elephantine, blood-smeared thumb. 'Dogman' almost immediately puts your nerves on a razor's edge, and even if it were not based on a true story, the actions of these two tormented souls has the feral stink of truth about it.

Their criminally uneasy alliance leads inexorably to a devastating life-altering crisis, wherein, Marcello's moral turpitude, and total submission to the maniacal might of, Simone fatefully turns him into a corrupted stooge, a social pariah, an outcast. Observing the pitiless, arbitrary manner of, Marcello's destruction is an uneasy experience. He is certainly not without blame, the morality of Marcello's mercenary activities are entirely questionable, and yet, he remains a sympathetic figure. Marcello's stupidity and conspicuous weakness are ultimately forgivable, but, Simone's shameless brutality is truly reprehensible. Matteo Garrone's searingly unsentimental drama is an emotionally bruising vision of uncommonly visceral power. The sordid world of 'Dogman', while prosaic, is wholly credible, and the banality of evil it contains rings uncomfortably true. The stark climax is exhausting, like some forgotten parable from an especially grisly gnostic text, the desperate sight of, Marcello's haunted visage is not one easily erased!