More Dogs Than Bones (2000)

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

For those of you hesitant to rent this movie based on the box description, several points may change your mind. The dog in this movie doesn't talk, and isn't CGI. Whoopi Goldberg has relatively little screen time, perhaps about fifteen minutes total. The guy from 'Office Space' with the grudge against the copier, Ajay Naidu, plays a major role. This is a dark comedy, more then a crime drama. A brief scene involving dog fighting is one of the lesser reasons why this is =not= a family film. Despite the violence, it actually contains less gore then crime dramas such as 'Bound', and it's implied rather then shown. The characters appear at first to be clichéd roles – a retiring police officer, a foreign taxi driver, a hit man with a conscience, an apparently homosexual neighbor – but they end up not conforming to their Hollywood templates. The movie contains a refreshing mix of amusing situations, ironic humor, and slapstick comedy, and isn't dragged down by it's fifteen minutes of the 'warm fuzzies' type of comedy associated with Whoopi Goldberg's movies. Several things drag this movie down from a 10 for me. It's lacking polish in places, and some of the shots could be framed better. It 'feels' low budget. The ending, in it's twisting, is a bit too choppy and needs a few more threads tying it into the rest of movie. If you're a fan of Todd Solondz's movies, don't be mislead by the box on this movie - Definitely worth renting.

This movie started out so good too. Then all of a sudden everyone bares fangs and starts double-crossing and killing each other at the end! Yes, to be a good, clever ironic movie, you need to have some double-crossing. But the writer must've gotten lazy, and switched off the "good" and "clever" part, and just had everyone become a monster.Couldn't they have shown all of those apartment complex neighbors outwitting the bad guys and getting to keep the money in the end? Possibly even doing something to get revenge for the accidental murders of their two apartment mates at the beginning? Why does the dog-catcher get all of the money? She only showed up in the middle very briefly. Yes, sorry, I gave away the ending ... don't worry about it, you're not likely going to watch it all of the way till the end of this movie anyway.

It had such promise. Don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Would like to say it was clever, fun and original. And for a while--just a little while--it was fun. I laughed at some of the lines. No, really, I did. There were some great takes on myths about America and Americans. And then...it all went to hell in the biggest handbasket I've ever seen. For three quarters of the movie everything is warm and fuzzy. And then, I guess they lost the last part of the script and said "Oh, well. Let's just kill everyone."Wouldn't you have liked to see Peter Coyote get his job back? Or better yet, frame one of his superiors, make it up with Mercedes Ruehl, maybe off the Louise Fletcher character (what a waste of a great actress) and go off to Barbados? Or what if each person had somehow each gotten their own dream? Or if Uncle Raj had gotten the cash to return to his home in India? I was even expecting to see Uncle Raj become involved with Victoria for a bit. Wouldn't that have been a cool pairing? Wouldn't it have been funny to either a) see her mellow out or b) him become avaricious and street smart? Wouldn't it have been a riot if they had stretched each new obstacle out a bit more? It could have been so funny....But Nooooooooooooooooo! They turned it into a stereotypes on parade with Whoopi doing her cool earth mother routine yet AGAIN (since Celie, has she actually played any other character besides herself?) becoming the hero because she's a cool earth mother. Boring!

Bad. Very bad. I wouldn't suggest it to my worst enemies. Through innuendo this movie basically describes America and its inhabitants as bloodthirsty and greedy. Even those who originally came from foreign countries eventually became tainted. (There are some people in this country that match that description, but not every single person) The direction of this film was also poor and it left decent actors (not the best, but what kind of talent would sign on to this project) with no chance of helping the film. Do yourself a favor and skip over this film when you are looking to rent something.