REVIEW: THE POWER OF THE DOG

4/5

Dog Day Afternoon.

126 Mins. Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Keith Carradine & Frances Conroy. Director: Jane Campion. 

A bare-arsed Doctor Strange chasing after X-Men's Nightcrawler, who is actually the son of Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man's MJ is not the multi-verse you hoped for...even if it is utter madness. The cheek! But you won't want to Scooby Doo this crap. That's just 'The Power Of The Dog'. And it's no s###, as 'Sherlock' star Benedict Cumberbatch is so cumbersome and different under the usual elementary magnify glass. No, not hench and bench pressed up when he went 'Into Darkness' with the 'Star Trek' sequel as John Hari...it's been long enough, his name was KHAN! He's even more sinewy (I can break the big words out too like Vince Vaughn in 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' when I need them). But yet 'The Imitation Game' chameleonic actor here has a whole new wrath like the titan performer he is. All for the electric 'The Current War' spark-plugs best acting since he breathed fire into the legendary Smaug, stepping into the light for 'The Hobbit', or when he was 'Patrick Melrose' mad man with a cigarette in a bathtub. Three times Benedict was subject to nicotine poisoning during the filming of this film to the cinematography's aesthetics benefit under the yellow stained fingernails. Rolling more rizzlers than there will be red carpets for him soon for his Kodak moment at the theatre of Oscar's Academy Awards. Not completely award season gold filthy rich, but Cumberbatch could sure use a bath here. The thick of his muddied and maddening performance as a raw ranch hand will garner a round of applause from everyone. From Sundance to the statue. I see it like a dog in the power of this mountainous terrain. Now there's a good actor, boy. The lord of the plains.

Championing Jane Campion's new classic 'The Power Of The Dog' already with a Silver Lion award for her pup, Benedict is brilliant. Whilst the New Zealand screenwriter, producer and director of the big-three 'An Angel At My Table', 'Bright Star' and 'Holy Smoke!' brings a new take to even the neo western genre for this drama with a desperate difference in this great depression. Based on novelist Thomas Savage's story of the great American West. Dog-eared, but no longer yellowing as its brought to the streaming screens of goliath giant Netflix, all whilst the likes of Amazon Prime and Disney + are sharpening their swords for the biggest battle of the fall...for everyone's subscriptions this Christmas. Amongst the Montana mountains, slow burning like a candle's wick with wax dripping fear of the black dog subtle tension, this film hides a lot in plain sight. A Heath and Jake 'Brokeback' burgeoning romance for your ledgers. A generational gap friendship forged in alliance to read all about like Tom Hanks' 'News Of The World' (now also Netflix) for a Greengrass 'Captain Phillips' reunion. And even another neo sleeper like the 'Slow West' a certain young stud earned his spurs in alongside fellow X-Men, Michael Fassbender. Raw like hide, there are many neo westerns these days that have changed this genres matrix like the resurrections of Reeves. From modern day bandits like Chris Pine and Ben Foster going 'Hell Or High Water' against the banks and from Jeff Bridges lawman to Natalie Portman's 'Jane Got A Gun'. But Campion has the champion with this bronco. 

Benedict could be the beneficiary of a batch of awards for this one, but all the all-star cast show up here too like Netflix's own star-studded 'Godless' six-shooter mini-series. After starting down 'The Road' of a Cormac McCarthy amazing adaptation with Viggo Mortensen, a young Kodi Smit-McPhee has been a rising 'Alpha'. From Marvel's to the 'Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes', but now with a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Supporting actor here, the kid Kodi is all grown up. Here he weathers any storm on the horizon of his young life. Whether they be lisping taunts from Cumberbatch's character, or emasculating gestures from others for his effeminate ways. But bravery and heart, like love, knows no gender. Despite what those challenging his manhood think or tell him to believe. McPhee stands on his own two spurs, spurred on by a desire that's more than just trying to make it in this world that back then, trying to put him in one wouldn't give him his place. It's a repressed aggravated performance of nervous passion that deserves everybody's confidence. But for everything Cumberbatch and Kodi are getting for this heralded picture from Hollywood, it's former(?) 'Spider-Man' star Kristen Dunst who really brings it. The moving mothering of a wonderful wife driven to drink and force away from the piano by Cumberbatch's cruel chides. The 'Interview With A Vampire' and 'Little Women' child star is now a legend like 'Elizabethtown' thanks to Murray like Coppola collaborations including, 'The Virgin Suicides', 'Mary Antoinette' and most recently a truly beguiling remake of a Clint Eastwood classic. But this perfect performance from the dark depths, shrouded in sadness that feels infinite takes her even higher like 'Melancholia'. All before she may even have 'No Way Home' for a career year that's anything but low hanging fruit or spider's dangling upside down like it was mistletoe. Because 'tis the season. But that's not it for former child actors who have made it big in this town for this class cast. Jesse Plemons of nearly every other film you see these days is the essence of character and kindness for this former character actor. Let's not think anymore about the 'Judas and the Black Messiah' stars last Netflix movie 'I'm Thinking Of Ending Things'. The mindf### had us thinking the same, although his turn in it was terrific. We're sure we will piece more of this layered film together the more we take it apart with every watch, instead of doing that critically. Dancing in a field with Dunst here however at the beginning of things, one moment were a tear from his eye falls down his cheek because of how good it is to no longer be alone has us in our emotions. Even with the view behind them you can't take your eyes of this gentle couples grace. Add another rising star in 'The Hobbit' ('Five Armies'), 'The King' and 'Jojo Rabbit' star who has now had her spotlight in Edgar Wright's 'Last Night In Soho' Thomas McKenzie, Aussie singer and soap star Genevieve Lemon, Carradine family member Keith from 'Nashville' and 'The Angel Of Death' of 'American Horror Story' legend Frances Conroy and this really is a best picture. Psalm 20:20 reads in this 2021 movie, "deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog." Once a blade opens an envelope marked best in 2022, this dog will have its day. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'News Of The World', 'Slow West', 'Brokeback Mountain'.