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BENJI-OFF THE LEASH
by Peter Sobczynski

August 20, 2004

(out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written and directed by Joe Camp. Starring Nick Whitaker and Chris Kendrick

Even though I have managed to successfully avoid exposure to any movie featuring Benji, everyone’s favorite wonder dog, for more than 25 years (I think the last one was that thing where he played a reincarnated Chevy Chase and went around solving mysteries), I went into the screening of his latest adventure, "Benji-Off the Leash" with certain expectations-expectations that I am certain are shared by most people contemplating attending such a film. I assumed that it would be a silly, innocuous piece of fluff featuring endless scenes in which the dog would go through his bag of tricks while helping people out with their personal problems. No doubt, there would be some kind of comic relief where dopey people flail around and repeatedly pratfall into the mud. And of course, there would be a happy happy, joy joy ending where all of the good people are rewarded and the bad people punished.

To be fair, all of those elements do occur in "Benji-Off the Leash" and if the film had just stuck to them, the results might have been just another cloyingly cute doggie movie that would be at least mildly diverting to viewers with less-than-discerning tastes and a age in the single digits. However, writer-director Joe Camp, the brains behind the long-running Benji empire, has inexplicably surrounded these things with a storyline that also includes details on such unsavory elements as physical and emotional abuse (directed at animals, spouses and children), alcoholism and graphic discussions of the horrors of illegal dog breeding. This is material so dark that in a film aimed at adults, it might seem a bit bleak and grim. For little kids (who are, lets face it, pretty much the only people likely to get excited over the concept of a Benji movie), I suspect that they will either be too young to understand it (leading to any number of extremely uncomfortable questions for parents) or they will be simply traumatized by all of the unexpected bleakness.

After an opening credits discussion of the search for a dog to play Benji in a new film (all of the dogs to play Benji over the years have come from shelters), the darkness kicks off as Hatchett (Chris Kendrick), an evil illegal dog breeder with dozens of filthy pens in his tiny backyard, tracks down a prized dog with her new puppies in an abandoned house. Of course, one of the puppies is an adorable mongrel and Hatchett, who apparently realizes that he is a bad guy in a movie, literally throws the pup across the room in a rage. The escape of the mother, by the way, was engineered by his son Colby (Nick Whitaker) and for his troubles, he is sent to bed without any supper (though the implication is that such punishment is the least of his worries). It soon becomes evident that Hatchett is a monster who spends his days drinking beer, cruelly overbreeding dogs (we later hear that he is "selling the dogs to a foreign country") and terrorizing his wife and son. Colby, on the other hand, rescues the pup (dubbed Puppy) and raises him in an abandoned shed (tricked out with the kind of Rube Goldberg devices that seem to have been designed by the Little Rascals-or at least their production designers) while protecting him from Dad.

Perhaps belatedly realizing that such material was wildly inappropriate for what was meant to be a kids film, Camp grafts on a parallel storyline that conforms more closely to what one might expect from a Benji film. Another meanie abandons a dog by the side of the road and this pup runs afoul of a pair of dim-witted dogcatchers whose attempts to apprehend him inevitably result with them receiving a face full of mud and a tranquilizer dart in the hinder. Eventually, this dog, dubbed Lizard-Tongue, winds up joining forces with Puppy in an effort to rescue Puppy’s mother and save the day. Although the slapsticky vibe of this section will probably please little kids, I have three problems with this subplot. First, Lizard-Tongue looks, right from the start, to be so perfectly groomed and coiffed that it is hard to believe that he would dumped on the side of the road as just a filthy mongrel-yes, I know such things happen but in the specific context of this film, it looks pretty ridiculous. Second, Lizard-Tongue continues to look perfectly healthy and well-fed despite, according to the timeline of the film, wandering around in the elements for over ten months. Finally, all of the silliness of this material (which also includes a seemingly insane old man who winds up caring for Lizard-Tongue) is so far removed from the cruelty of the main story that the lighter stuff winds up being more jarring than amusing.

I cannot for the life of me understand what Joe Camp was thinking when he decided on this as the story that would introduce Benji to a new generation of viewers. Perhaps he recalled films like "Bambi" or "Finding Nemo" that included tragic elements into otherwise light family fare; if so, he fails because the balance between light and dark is way off and the very fact that it is live-action lends an added reality to the proceedings that will be harder to shake off. Perhaps he figured that a more mature storyline would attract an audience wider than the kind usually attracted to a cute dog movie; I would argue that any Benji movie, no matter how it is conceived, is liable to attract one kind of audience (young children and their parents) and that any attempt to broaden that mandate is doomed to failure from the start. Perhaps he wanted to illustrate how cruelty to animals (which is tolerated far too frequently) can quickly evolve into an abusive attitude towards people as well; I can see how such a plot could make for a thoughtful film but to stick it without warning into the middle of a movie aimed at tots who are unlikely to grasp such subtleties seems fairly perverse.

Is there anything in "Benji-Off the Leash" that is entertaining? Although his work with the human actors is remarkably ham-fisted, Camp is good at getting performances from his animal cast and the scenes involving Puppy and Lizard-Tongue working together are interesting to watch. I also got a strange kick out of the final scene of the film; without going into detail, I must admit that I was not expecting the climax of a Benji movie to appropriate elements from both "Stella Dallas" and "Adaptation". Other than those bits, the film is a wild misfire that looks like a kid movie but which contains all of the emotional sadism of a Dario Argento film (as well as the same number of close-ups of eyeballs). If you have children who are clamoring for a cute dog movie, I would recommend, in order, "Shiloh", "My Dog Skip", "Old Yeller" and "Cujo"-only after watching all of those will the average tot be ready to accept the trauma of "Benji-Off the Leash".

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.