Rex

Cast: Kate Mara, Tom Felton, Bradley Whitford, Edie Falco, and Will Patton

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite  

112 minutes (12) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.40:1

LionsGate DVD Region 2

[Released 19th March]

Rating: 6/10

Review by Donald Morefield

Recently, women in Hollywood have made the news, especially for the ‘me too’ campaign against the scandal of sexual predators. Despite this gender profile, actual movies about strong females remain a rarity in comparison to stories of male heroism. Wonder Woman (2017) has proven to be critical success but perhaps that was partly because the movie’s glamorous star, Gal Gadot, wears a sexy costume. On the movie industry’s sliding scale of celebrity focus, political drama Miss Sloane (2016), starring the very talented Jessica Chastain, reportedly cost $13 million but took just $9 million at the box-office. Does that make it a commercial failure, despite being a hit with the critics? Megan Leavey, about a US marines recruit who becomes a dog-handler, is unfortunately re-titled Rex, just as if - for this British DVD’s promotional purposes, at least - a German shepherd can upstage the actress playing an American soldier. Demi Moore’s G.I. Jane (1997) is a very obvious precedent for this type of military drama, and its feminist credentials are mentioned in a throwaway line of dialogue by the central character’s mother in Rex.

Promoted from cleaning duties to dog handler, Corporal Megan Leavey (Kate Mara, from Shooter, TransSiberian, The Martian, Fantastic Four remake), gets the kennel’s resident ‘bad’ dog, a clearly dangerous animal that she partners with, slowly but surely, after she manages to overcome his aggressive behaviour, saying “We’re in this together.” Megan’s deployment to Iraq brings on tedious lonely nights and days of terrorism, while scouting routes for IEDs. She starts on check-points, as the only places where female troops are considered safe from enemy combatants. After three months in the field, Megan and Rex get their first proper mission, tracking insurgents, and they uncover a stash of weapons hidden under prayer rugs in the home of a supposedly ‘religious’ family. Roadside booby-traps and minefields present a frequent hazard, and sometimes recall Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2008). Rex is never quite as searingly intense as that movie, but a mid-story explosion perfectly matches its acutely disorientating reactions to wholly traumatic events.  

While searching an abandoned school, the alert Rex saves troops from a direct assault in the escalation of hostilities to a war-movie shoot-out that delivers one episode of violent action. While she’s on leave for Xmas, Megan frets over separation from Rex. She worries that her dog will not survive long in the desert war zone without her. Although it is based upon a true story, Rex has a happy ending that borders on fairytale adventure, and there is an angle of interpretation for Rex as yet another of Hollywood’s Beauty And The Beast variations. In terms of genre history on the small screen, Rex also draws upon a bonding story from popular sci-fi TV series The Bionic Woman (1976-8), where the bionic dog Max is befriended by Lindsay Wagner’s cyborg heroine.  

Megan tries to save Rex and adopt him, but military authorities, and a seemingly callous vet, have other ideas. With precious little support from her family back at home, it seems to be one final battle that Megan cannot win. Help for veteran ‘war dogs’ is not a priority, despite her petition endorsed by a senator. Inevitably, and thankfully, this movie offers a heart-warming tale of close friendship in great adversity, and it’s one that skilfully avoids any of the maudlin wallowing that usually accompanies soap-opera styled sentimentality.

DVD extras:

A behind-the-scenes featurette, Love And War (two and a half minutes).

Trailers.