A DOG OF FLANDERS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Warner Bros./Woodbridge Films Director: Kevin Brodie Writer: Kevin Brodie & Robert Singer, story by Ouida Cast: Jack Warden, Jeremy James Kissner, Jesse James, Jon Voight, Steven Hartley, Cheryl Ladd, Madylin Sweeten, Bruce McGill
Titles chosen for movies obviously have something to do with the interest the films generate. Perhaps "The Iron Giant," a leviathan of a story which achieved eminent critical success, was a box-office disappointment because its title just doesn't excite attention. But label a movie with "dog" and you just may attract ample notice. After all a whopping 40% of American households have dogs, or so I've heard. Then, you never know. In the 19th century the most popular words in the English language were "Lincoln," "Doctor," and "Dog," so naturally someone wrote a novel called "Lincoln's Doctor's Dog." It failed.
"A Dog of Flanders" is not a failure, but the picture is not a triumph of children's filmmaking either. A tear-jerker like "Lassie Come Home," "Flanders" does not stand up to that 1943 masterwork, the greatest animal picture of all time. Kevin Brodie and Robert Singer's script is saddled with cliches, its focus is not on the dog (who has little more than a cameo role and, in fact, is not even cited in the principal cast list), and though we want children's movies to teach lessons, this one OD's on preachiness. Here are some of the platitudes that kids in the audience must endure, if indeed they sit as still as they did for the far worthier "Iron Giant"...
1. Never underestimate the power of love; 2. Never get drunk and whip your dog; 3. Don't smoke and then fall asleep in the haystack; 4. Never hate or lower yourself to the level of your enemies; 5. There's nothing like milk in the morning; 6. Bandages keep the dirt out; 7. Reach for the stars; 8. Of course you can be great: you have (mother, grandfather, dog, blacksmith, great painter) to believe in you. 9. People die, right before your eyes, kids. (One from influenza, I think; one from a heart attack; one is murdered by a dog.)
If you're a particularly hip kid, you may get the message that it's OK to have fun in the hay with a woman and then abandon her if she's below your station. You can always return a hero years later and take responsibility for what you and the indigent lady produced.
"A Dog of Flanders" was done a few times before on TV and in the movies, the one notable American version most notably featuring Theodore Bikel in a character role in 1959. There was also a European interpretation of Ouida's fable during the 1940s. This is not to say there's no reason to revive the sappy story since most of us probably hadn't seen any of the previous incarnations, so here's what we get...
Nello (Jeremy James Kissner as the kid of about 12 and Jesse James when he was six) watches his mother die after she was presumably caught in a Belgian snowstorm. Nello is brought up by an amiable grandfather, Jehan Daas (Jack Warden), who encourages the lad to cherish a sketchbook his mother left for him. When a brutal drunk leaves his whipped work dog, a Bouvier des flanders, for dead in the snow, the boy adopts the dog whom he dubs Patrasche, nurses her (him?) back to the living, and finds room in his heart for both the Bouvier and a rich girl named Aloise (Madylin Sweeten). Determined to become a painter like the Belgian town's late hero, Peter Paul Rubens, he finds himself at a disadvantage because of his socio-economic class, shunned by both Aloise's philistine father and later by the city fathers. But his painting career blossoms under the guidance of an accomplished artist, Michel de la Grande (Jon Voight), who takes an unusual interest in the boy.
Jon Voight looks silly in the huge rug he wears to show that he's a European Artiste (capital E and A), and seems embarrassed enough in the role that he wears assorted layers of clothing even when he's studying his canvas. Jack Warden's avuncular guise is all too brief but Jeremy James Kissner as the principal performer carries the picture well enough. (The boy bears an unusual resemblance to Helen Hunt.) By exhibiting the usual suspects--giving comeuppance to a drunk who suffers a fate like that of the Wicked Witch of the West and to a vicious landlord who resembles the landowners of Victorian melodramas; and making heroes of the good guys including the sensitive wife (Cheryl Ladd) of an all-too-practical farmer (Steven Hartley)--"A Dog of Flanders" is just a been-there-done-that generic amusement that has little resonance. The dog is adorable, and when she (he?) likes the human will bark on cue and pull loads of milk in a wagon. But a picture that's named for the Bouvier should have made the Belgian pooch do more to earn his waffles. You may have heard barking before, but yips and yelps are preferable to sentences like blacksmith William's "There's nothing like milk in the morning."
Rated PG. Running Time: 101 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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