Advertisement

Movies & TV Movies & TV Reviews

Review: Dogs On The Inside

DOGS ON THE INSIDE (Brean Cunningham, Douglas Seirup). 67 minutes. Rating: NNN

Where to watch: Netflix, iTunes


Full disclosure: I am a sucker for footage of a happy dog, and Dogs On The Inside has a lot of happy dogs in it – specifically, dogs that have been saved from awful situations and shown kindness and love, possibly for the first time in their lives. So, yeah – bias declared.

Dogs On The Inside looks at the Don’t Throw Us Away program, which pairs rescued dogs with inmates at the minimum-security North Central Correctional Institution in Gardiner, Massachusetts, for mutually beneficial rehabilitation.

The program is great, and worth supporting, and the testimonials from prisoners who’ve been allowed to connect with their “best selves” by caring for an abused or abandoned animal are genuinely moving. But this is more a feature-length promotional video than a documentary.

That would be okay, too, if the filmmaking were more graceful or at least seamless. Brean Cunningham and Douglas Seirup appear to have made Dogs On The Inside on a shoestring: they’re credited as directors, writers, producers, cinematographers and music supervisors. And they clearly had limited access to the program they’re documenting, which means a relatively small amount of usable footage is stretched over the entire feature.

Most of it is of dogs being adorable or attentive, so that may not be a deal-breaker for you. But it’s hard to overlook such an obvious crutch in a movie as short as this.

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted