QUIGLEY (2003) ** This should be shown as part of family counseling, or something. For half an hour you wonder if you've made a terrible mistake; subjecting your children to such pathetic efforts at acting, home video cinematography, juvenile jokes, stupid subplots quite nearly disassociated from each other. P. J. Ochlan has arguably the worst German accent in the history of film, and even worse, is one of the few characters ever written too far fetched to be believed: a German who doesn't like dogs. It's like watching four dumb movies at the same time. Somehow...well, the production values never improve at all, and the only additional stratagem appears to be pushing every button known to the children's genre (a lost child, family problems resolved, illness resolved, etc.)...but somehow, perhaps because your children are enjoying things, having not been manipulated in these same exact ways ten million times...somehow the themes transcend all, and the very well meant goodness of everyone involved dwarfs, as in the film itself, their shortcomings. I mean, c'mon!, Gary Busey? He could never make a billion, but he has a good voice for talking about dogs and confusion. Jessica Ferrarone has something decidedly matriarchal about her, in a pretty, organic, laid back Topanga Canyon way. Christopher Atkins had half the girls in my senior class thinking about how to have children with his performance in Blue Lagoon, and it turns out that a quarter century later they'll still think he's kind of cute and surfer-like. And good. Goodness is a key here, it has to be when the central character is a stupid-looking drop-kick dog. Ah (checking my own karmatic spectra), I mean a cute little Pomeranian.
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