Dogman (2023) – Luc Besson.

Straight off the bat, I must admit to being a mega fan of Besson's gun-happy Eurocorp oeuvre; Subway, Nikita, and the iconic actioner Leon remain dear to my heart to this very day. Dogman is a film I erroneously believed would be doggie-Doo, which happily then proved to be the mutt's nuts! The predictable narrative didn't hinder my enjoyment, as I had profound sympathy for the damaged protagonist (Caleb Landry Jones), and any feature with a smarty pants pooch doing his smarty pants thing to ZZ Top's La Grange is going to register strongly with me. I still righteously dig on 70s midnight movie classic The Doberman Gang, and I sincerely feel Besson's Dogman contains playful trace elements of TDG throughout. The central premise of a cruelly disabled malcontent, ostracized by an unfeeling world, expressing himself in heartfelt drag performances, and being lovingly protected by a razor-keen pack of preternaturally gifted hounds ultimately proved wonderfully entertaining, and would additionally make for a damn fine Graphic Novel. An appealing, brain-meltingly cutesy factor scampers amiably throughout Dogman, kinda suggestive of Walter Hill taking a skewed shot at making some satisfyingly schmaltzy, Disneyfied pulp. I'm more than positive that this has been suggested a multitude of times before, but of all his youthful Thespian contemporaries, Caleb Landry Jones is demonstratively the most suited to playing The Joker.