There's A Good Dog (Brent) At The Center of Megan Leavey

It has been said that war is Hell. By contrast, we know all doggies are pure and perfect creations. Combining the two of these contrasting entities would seem to be as odd of a pairing as Sardines & Mustard or Donald Trump and Codes To Launch Nuclear Weapons. Unlike those two awful duos though, dogs are a common presence in the world of warfare, with brave puppers going out on the front lines to perform all sorts of duties they're human companions can't. So, just to fully recap, not only are doggies cute, adorable and loveable, they're also bad-ass war heroes who put their lives on the lines for our country. Three cheers for doggies!


Megan Leavey, a new war movie from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite, puts one of such wartime doggie in the spotlight alongside its owner, the titular lead character of the story, Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) is a small-town individual who's life is going nowhere and, searching for purpose, enlists in the Marines. Though she gets off to a rough start in her training, she manages to find her calling by inadvertently discovering the world of combat dogs. Seeing the bond that can develop between canine and owner inspires her lonely spirit to aspire to be a trainer for one of these creatures and bunkers down and dedicates herself to achieving all the requirements necessary to be able to work alongside one of these dogs on the battlefield.

Eventually, she's able to be placed in charge of Rex, a German Shepard who has his own set of personal issues to work out. Dude's a bit on the vicious and easily excitable side, but he and Megan Leavey soon manage to form a bond that takes them right into the heart of the Iraq war, where they find themselves in the middle of combat situations they couldn't have possibly prepared for or even imagined. Looking over the entire movie's plot as a whole, one might even go so far as to say that, perhaps, in their journies together, Megan Leavey thought she was training Rex....when in actuality....he....was training her....to love again.

Joking aside, the premise of Megan Leavey suffers from some erratic pacing that basically shoves the more personal problems plaguing the protagonist into the periphery after heavily emphasizing them in the first few scenes of the screenplay. We see how Megan is just a normal person looking for purpose in her small town who tends to make impulsive decisions like urinating outside a superior officers building in a drunken stupor or the tragic circumstances she was involved in that inform her more withdrawn demeanor that we learn in a second act monologue. It's a very interesting groundwork to base a more flawed character off of and Kate Mara does a fine job playing Megan Leavey in the initial scenes of the movie as a more realistically troubled individual.

But then she goes to boot camp and various training exercises in order to be able to take care of an Army dog and it all goes by in the span of a super quick montage. Suddenly, Megan Leavey's entire character is flipped around in too abrupt of a manner as she's become more proficient in the world of combat. It's weird because it feels like the right conclusion for this part of her journey as a character as she dedicates herself to improving herself for a greater goal, demonstrating how she's applying herself and growing as a person in her time in the Marines. But it goes by too quickly, meaning this major shift in her personality doesn't get to have the emotional impact it should and instead comes off like the trio of writers of this project were just in too much of a hurry to get Megan Leavey paired up with her doggo Rex.

There's a similar problem throughout Megan Leavey wherein major character changes and plot points (especially a pivotal third act plot point wherein Megan becomes an activist of sorts that is overly hurried in the way its  executed)  go by in a blink of an eye (especially a pivotal third act plot point wherein Megan becomes an activist of sorts that is overly hurried in the way its executed) instead of letting us gradually watch the character morph and evolve. But while it rushes a number of parts of Megan Leavey's character arc, it does at least handle her most important character dynamic in a satisfactory manner, specifically, the bond she forms with Rex. The feature fares well in showing the individual flaws Megan and Rex have and how they both benefit from being around on another. Later sequences in the story depicting Megan working with Rex on the battlefield benefit greatly from how Kate Mara plays her characters interactions with Rex with a believable mixture of a sharp-minded soldier and a caring pet owner.

Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (who showed a similar love for the animals in her 2013 documentary Blackfish) makes her narrative feature film directorial debut and she's actually putting in solid work as a filmmaker here. I particularly enjoy the way she films the wartime sequences, which have an appropriate visual unpredictability to them. The camera angle, framing and shot choices don't seem to make it obvious what kind of atrocities are around the corner, we're as uncertain of what's to come on the front lines as Megan Leavey and Rex are. I really wish the script wasn't in such a gosh-darn hurry all the time, as there are too many potentially captivating emotional moments that fall flat thanks to that facet of the film. But Kate Mara and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite help pick up the slack and make Megan Leavey a solid wartime adventure, though the contributions the super duper precious doggie playing Rex brings to the movie cannot be underestimated either, that canine is most certainly a good boy!