Last of the Dogmen came highly recommended to me by a few people and while its premise sounded too fantastic I really wanted to like this film. I heard that it treated the Cheyenne or Tsistsistas with authenticity. I wanted to like this 1995 HBO fantasy but I didn't like it and I will share my reasons.

I did enjoy the usage of the Cheyenne language which was music to my ears. It was well spoken by actress Barbara Hershey as well as by the Native American actors who portrayed the various Cheyenne characters. This was a nice touch and added to what success the film had.

The story and the screenplay are the two most absurd things about this film. It is a fantasy, 100% a fantasy, and so I might have been willing to excuse the premise but the plot devices were so absurd and so contrived that I could not, ultimately, forgive the failure of this film just by telling myself it was make-believe. Rather than being about the Cheyenne, Last of the Dogmen is more the story of a grieving and guilt-ridden widower, Lewis Gates, whose wife drowned due to an accident from which he was not able to save her. The Cheyenne are mostly a backdrop to the drama of Lewis's life. Having retreated into a hermit's existence, his only relationships are with his dog and his whiskey. His embittered father-in-law, Sheriff Deegan, blames him for the death of his daughter. The movie is about how Lewis finds his way back to himself and life with the help of a spirited woman and some Cheyenne Indians.

One day three convicts escape into the rugged wilderness of "the Oxbow" in a mountainous area of Montana. Sheriff Deegan forces expert tracker Lewis to go looking for the escapees by threatening to have him jailed for disobeying leash laws. "Whatever," I thought. This would be the first in a long series of whatever moments. When Lewis is out in the bush he spots the escaped convicts but doesn't do anything, deciding to wait till morning. Before he can round them up however, the three are killed by some people on horseback that Lewis just sort of catches glimpses of out of the corner of his eye. He also finds the broken shaft of an authentic looking arrow along with lots of blood. This is weird in his mind...just plain weird...scratch, scratch...Hmmm? It is not explained why even with their honed skills this military party of Dog Men fails to notice Lewis even though he's crashing around the woods on a horse! No, the Indians conveniently only take out the bad guys.

He goes back to town and does a bit of research at the newspaper office and finds lots of old stories about various people who have gone missing in the Oxbow over the years. He finds one story about a "wild boy" that was once captured who spoke no English and who escaped from jail and disappeared back into the wilderness. Flashbacks ensue. (The explanation for how this poor child escapes from jail is my second whatever!) In one of the papers Lewis sees a story about a woman anthropologist, Lillian Sloan, who is an expert on the Cheyenne and who just happens to be conducting a dig right in the neighborhood. (Whatever.)

He goes to her work site and tries to convince her that there are Cheyennes living in the Oxbow that still live exactly as they did in the 1870s. She doesn't believe him but eventually he convinces her...this is after he comes to her house, uninvited, this being the 2nd time she has ever laid eyes on him. He has a mineral water with her, she needles him about his drinking problem, and then she invites him to stay the night and sleep on her couch while warning him that she likes to walk around naked in the mornings. (Whatever to the power of ten.) They go in search of the Cheyennes after she relates the real-life tragic story of the Sand Creek Massacre of Black Kettle's band of Southern Cheyenne in Colorado. (This is an accurate story but what it has to do with a party of Dog Soldiers holed up in Montana for 130 years, I have no idea.)

The Cheyenne Dog Men spot them before they spot the Cheyennes and it is only the lucky placement of his canteen that saves Lewis from getting pierced by a Cheyenne arrow. Lillian, who conveniently speaks fluent Cheyenne and is composed enough under fire to use it, starts yelling in the Cheyenne language and suddenly the pair is surrounded by a whole party of Cheyenne men. The leader shoots Lewis's dog. (Whatever)

Lillian and Lewis and the dog are eventually assimilated into the tribe...(whatever to the nth degree)...Lewis never has to prove himself at all and he most definitely would have had to prove himself. A little girl helps to heal the dog. Turns out that Yellow Wolf, up and coming soon-to-be chief and leader of the Dog Soldiers has a grown son who was shot by one of the escaped convicts and he is dying. Lewis has to go back to town and get some penicillin. He goes about it all wrong and creates an endless string of whatever moments. He gets followed back into the Oxbow by the cops and a big posse but not before he's able to deliver the meds, cure the son, and deliver an Indian-headed Pez dispenser to the little dog healer girl. He realizes he's in love with Lillian and of course she loves him, too. She's staying with the Cheyenne forever because of the awesome learning opportunities. In the biggest and most ridiculous whatever of the entire flick Lewis tries and fails but Yellow Wolf succeeds in blowing up the secret hidden pass thus forever protecting the band of Cheyenne from the modern world. There's about two dozen or so more whatever moments, but that is the gist of it.

The adorable Australian Cattle Dog that plays the dog Zip is the best actor in this film. Tom Berenger as Lewis Gates was okay, I guess, but his lines were so ridiculous, that he just seemed dumb to me. I don't think it was Berenger's fault. What else could he do with this script? Barbara Hershey was good but she has really stupid lines, too. The parts where she spoke in Cheyenne were excellent. She did a wonderful job. I could have listened to her all night. It was believable, especially a wonderful part where she's telling a funny story in the Cheyenne language and she's getting all the laughing and joking nuances just right, too. Kurtwood Smith who plays Red on That 70s Show did a good job as the Sheriff but he was exactly like Red, an ornery, unreasonable ol' crank with emotional issues. Ho-hum.

We learn in this film that these old-style Cheyenne are Dog Men. The Dog Men or hotamitanui are actually one of ten different bands of the Cheyenne. The term Dog Men is also the name of a particular military society among the Cheyenne. This film implies that these people are descendants of a group of Dog Men in the sense of the military society. The film at least had actual Native American actors portraying the Cheyenne characters...kudos. Steve Reevis as Yellow Wolf and Eugene Blackbear as Spotted Elk, in particular, were excellent but the screenplay only called for fierce warrior and stoic leader postures from Reevis and wise old chief postures from Blackbear. The First Nation attire was authentic, the dwellings, the travois, the weaponry, the hair styles and body painting and the herbal remedies were authentic. The encampment however looked like it was set up at Knotts Berry Farm. It was spotlessly clean as were the garments and every aspect of the camp. There wasn't a hair or a leaf out of place. These were authentic looking cliches, picture perfect pretty Indians, noble savages. The depiction of the Dog Soldiers and the talk about their bravery in battle is all true. The idea that a soon-to-be chief who is a leader among the Dog Soldiers would disobey an acting chief, risk the safety of the whole band, trust some white guy he barely knows, and sneak him back out to the civilized world for the sake of his own personal feelings for his own son is patently absurd.

I love the fantasy notion of a surviving pocket of Cheyenne or any First Nation tribe that is still living a totally authentic life of freedom in the old traditional ways. I can, thus, see why people enjoy this film. Wouldn't it be nice if some of that great beauty that we wantonly destroyed still survived in its original, pristine sense?

On the surface it looks like this film does not resort to the usual prejudiced, cliched look at First Nation people and culture. It almost looks fair, almost reasonable. I'm sorry to say that I think no matter how pretty the picture is this time, it still overflows with cliches. This time the Indians aren't portrayed as blood-crazed savages but instead they're perfectly beautiful. Sure they're fierce, even brutal, but the film asks, "Wouldn't you be?" Steve Reevis is one handsome man but the screenplay just turns him into a caricature. I'm glad I didn't have to look at some white actor in indoor-tanning make-up but I wish Reevis would have had a bigger part than to just go through the motions of "brave warrior." There's a scene where the Sheriff's posse flies in over the camp with a helicopter. Yellow Wolf, true Dog Soldier that he is, races forward and plunges his stake into the ground, prepared to take on this frightening and incomprehensible monster to the death. (Frequently the rear guard in battle, Dog Soldiers were sworn to fight to the death and would sometimes stake themselves in one spot with a tether during battle.) Okay, I just thought this was too cheesy to bring the Dog Soldier up against a helicopter...just too over-the-top noble savagery.

The scenery in this film was beautiful. It was filmed in Mexico and Alberta, Canada. I don't know what stopped them from filming a movie that takes place in Montana actually in Montana but the scenery was terrific and added a lot to the minimal amount of credibility the film had.

For some odd reason this story was narrated with the voice-over done by folksy ol' Wilford Brimley. It didn't need narration but he kind of added ambiance.

If you wish, at any cost, for the saga of the Plains Indians versus the United States to have some kind of happy ending even though you know it didn't, then this movie will probably make you feel good. Even though I feel like some kind of kill-joy, I can't recommend this film. The script is AWFUL! The premise is wishful guilt-transference. Once again, First Nation people are white-washed, taking a back seat to the courageous and quick thinking white people who save the day. I guess I don't want aboriginal people to be back-lit, squeaky clean, photogenic and perfect even in my fantasies and I don't want a film called Last of the Dogmen to have Dogmen only as supporting cast members. Skip this film. You don't need more Hollywood Indians running around in your head even if they do speak an authentic tongue.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12