I wrote this about Mateo Garrone's "Dogman" back at 2018's Cannes Film Festival:
“Dogman” turns out to be a kind of David vs. Goliath story. Described as an urban western, while the drama does possess traces of Eastwood’s early no-frills gut-punches, it’s also very much a B-movie soaked in horror and revenge. It finds director Mateo Garrone back in fine form and mostly, at the height of his game; the allure of his monstrous antagonistic character is undeniable and he earns extra credit for creating one of the most reprehensible movie villains in recent memory. This is a malicious breed that looks at the seed of violence through another lens; not the pervasive malignancy of mafia corruption (like the director’s previous “Gommorah”), but a rather an unsettling, malevolent individual perpetrating his own brand of terror. A hyper-realistic urban tragedy “Dogman” is ferocious and in its own way, much more frightening than “Gomorrah.”
“Dogman” will be in theaters April 12, 2019.