Burning Dog

Written and directed by Trey Batchelor, Burning Dog follows a video-game designer as he gets caught up in a blackmail conspiracy involving contract killers, Russian mobsters, and dirty cops. Writer/director Batchelor, making his debut here, delivers a briskly-paced thriller that unfolds entirely from the first-person perspective of the central character (nicknamed Five and voiced by Adam Bartley), with the visual conceit generally working a whole lot better than one might’ve anticipated and even compensating, sporadically, for a narrative that grows more and more impenetrable as time progresses. It’s clear, then, that the somewhat generic bent of Batchelor’s screenplay increasingly prevents the viewer from connecting to the material or uniformly one-dimensional characters (ie the relentless, ceaseless emphasis on plot is exhausting), and there’s little doubt, ultimately, that the first-time filmmaker’s decision to replicate the tone and feel of a garden-variety first-person shooter cements Burning Dog‘s disappointing failure (ie the experience of watching the movie is ultimately akin to watching someone play a video game for 90 minutes) – which is too bad, certainly, given that the picture does possess superior production values and a handful of decent supporting performances.

** out of ****