CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

nesmond-97551 Story in a nutshell. Girl finds dog. Girl bonds with dog. Girl learns to her horror that dog has been trained to kill black people. Girl finds a black dog trainer who attempts to deprogram dog from killing black people. During his deprogramming, dog escapes from his pen and kills a black man inside a church. Black trainer finds dog and instead of killing it or letting the authorities handle it, takes it back and continues with the deprogramming. Trainer finally believes he has succeeded and calls girl to come and see how far dog has come along. Success! Dog no longer wants to kill black people. Now dog wants to kill fat old Burl Ives'-looking white men. Trainer shoots dog. Dog dies. Why does this movie have seven stars?

filmdebateblog Join the debate at filmdebate.wordpress.com THE PROFESSIONAL: I hadn't heard of this movie before I was browsing the Criterion Collection collection at my local independent video store. With such great cover art and a curious synopsis, I couldn't NOT rent it. "Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him." THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE: It felt like a movie of the week, in the most non-pejorative way possible. The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone was my favorite aspect of the movie.THE PROFESSIONAL: I came away much more impressed. I felt it was Jaws with a dog instead of a shark and The Exorcist with racism instead of some evil spirit. Now there were some definite flaws, but you'd have to say it easily tops Cujo.THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE: There needs to be a term like the "uncanny valley" for movies from the 80s and early 90s. It's recent enough that it feels current and identifiable, but old enough to feel cheesy and dated. Whereas movies much older, from the 40s and 50s for example, are so old that they are a completely separate era, and thus it's easier to accept that their styles were just the way they did things back then. The idea and execution were competent, but it was hard to take seriously. I will say it's the best animal acting/directing I've seen this side of "Homeward Bound".THE PROFESSIONAL: Somebody get that dog an Oscar! Postdogously. Yes, there is that 'gee whiz' acting quality of some of the characters / actors – but that is another similarity I see with The Exorcist. The story starts off quietly enough, with some naive individuals who become unknowingly entangled with a very dangerous situation, the true nature of which they become slowly aware of as the situation becomes increasingly more... CONTINUED AT FILMDEBATE.WORDPRESS.COM

Lucero22290 Samuel Fuller directs this film to reflect racism through a dog's perspective. Not at all is the film racist, on the contrary Fuller's main objective is to communicate a point across during that era. I think that this film portrays what was and is still occurring. The movie is not about "ohh look how cute is that dog". it's about a dog that has been mislead and taught to do the wrong thing. The white dog has been taught to attack black people. As a puppy the dog learned that because he had a bad experience with black person every other black person was the same. However, he was just poisoned by the very owner that had a hate for black people. Julie Sawyer one of the main actresses confronts the dog's ex- owner and speaks out her mind about how he had done such a hard to the dog. Racist people that spoil the rest of the bunch should be put a stop to because categorizing people according to their skin color isn't fair. This movie raises suspense but at times the music is too over the top, overall this film contains a greater meaning.

Samantha Tengco When I first watched White Dog, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. I understood that it was a film about racism and that it questions whether or not racism is a treatable or incurable condition. At the time, I felt like I needed to just let it soak in, to just absorb it all and wrap my thoughts around it.It starts like this: a young actress, Julie, is driving along a dark road and accidentally hits a white German Shepherd dog. After she gets the dog treated at a vet, she takes him home whilst trying to find the owners. The dog protects her one night and she decides to adopt it, not knowing that the dog was trained to attack African Americans. After realizing that there's something not quite right with the dog, she brings him to a dog trainer, Carruthers, whom, at first, tells to kill the dog. But another trainer, Keys (who is African American), undergoes the task of retraining the dog.So can the dog be retrained or not? To be completely honest, I couldn't completely buy into the story. Yes, I find it believable that a dog can be trained in such a way, but at the same time, the reactions from the characters just threw me off. Take Julie, for instance, she's rather defensive of a dog that just attacked her coworker. I get that she has an emotional attachment to the dog, especially since he protects her from a rapist. But I don't really understand why it doesn't seem to strike her as odd when the dog comes back one night, covered in dirt and blood. Don't you think if your dog came home looking like that, wouldn't alarm bells start going off in your head? Truthfully, I found the film interesting. I wouldn't put it up there with my favorites, but at the same time, I wouldn't knock it down either. I just wish the characters were a little more developed. But other than that, I would suggest it just for the question of whether or not learned hatred can be cured.