Dogman

**_A well made modern fable_** [contains spoilers]

> _I sprayed him with gasoline in his face and set him on fire. With his head he breaks through the wire mesh of the cage and begins to scream. He screamed like a madman. I tie him with two chains around his neck, the ones I use to hold dogs. I turn up the volume on the stereo, grab a stick and hit it. Twice. He faints, his head hanging from the broken wire, his body extended and his legs open. I take the scissors, I cut the thumbs and the indexes. I spray the gasoline on the wounds and burn them to stop the bleeding. He wakes up. He is gro...

Marcello Fonte delivers really capably here as the marmoset-like "Marcello" who has striven for years to develop his dog grooming business. To supplement his meagre income, he dabbles in a bit of cocaine dealing and in that he's partnered with the violent "Simone" (Eduardo Pesce) who is as selfish and unstable as he is brutal and ruthless. Unfortunately for the rather nervous "Marcello", his pal loses his temper just once too often and so soon is in need of a large sum of cash. To get that, he organises a robbery that ends up sending the loyal dog-man to prison for a year. Upon release, he fee...

Marcello runs a dog grooming shop in a grim, rain-soaked Roman suburb, and he is far too soft for the town he lives in. He deals a little coke on the side to fund scuba trips with his daughter, gets bullied into robberies by Simone, a former boxer twice his size, and somehow the film convinces you the whole time that this is still a decent man making bad choices out of loyalty to the wrong people.

The dog work is the tell. Marcello washes and calms animals other groomers would muzzle, and the scene that defines him has nothing to do with crime: he climbs back into a burgled house to pull a ...