Fluke

This movie is cute for my 8 year old but it's not really one she wants to watch over and over in our van for long trips. It has some sad parts and the story line is too heavy for my 2 year old to stay interested. It's very cute and enjoyable but is more a one time movie in our opinion. I'm still glad to own it.

This movie is NOT for young kids even though the back of the DVD case shows a dog getting a bath and states "this is a family movie". My kids were balling their eyes out when the dogs were getting put to sleep. I should have watched it first - LIVE AND LEARN!!!

First off, I grew up with dogs, I have an affection for dogs. I even have respect for PETA and their effort to ethically treat animals. That's a good mission to have.

But, that is a message that does not play well as this 90 minute movie. I mean with quotes like this "Maybe there are people like me behind the eyes of another creature." just went too far for me.

This movie was too melodramtic and my wife was calling out the plot points about one minute before each one which made for an abysmal screenplay. The musical score was fine enough as was the melody.

If you want a better dog movie, go get something like Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern Grows. Both are probably equally molodramtic but at least they have a better story/screenplay to carry the story to the conclusion.

This movie is literally for the dogs.

Fluke (Carlo Carlei, 1995)

There is book, and there is film. And every once in a while, there are book and film that are utterly unlike one another, and yet both are brilliant. Perhaps the best-known example of this phenomenon is Stephen King's novel and Tobe Hooper's TV miniseries 'Salem's Lot, which bear at best a passing resemblance as narrated by a gallon drunk. Fluke comes off the same way, and despite Carlei's ham-handedness, this movie works.

First, you have to realize this movie is based on a novel by James Herbert. The phrases "James Herbert" and "family film" are incapable of existing in the same sentence without quotes around them, or some sort of weird dimensional rift will open in the Universe, and the things that come through will eat all humanity, but not before subjecting it to weird perverse tortures. (No, they're not Cenobites. The things in James Herbert's imagination eat Cenobites for breakfast and use the nails as toothpicks.) So one has to wonder, as I have for the past ten years, how any movie based on a James Herbert novel could possibly be called a "wonderful family film" by, erm, at least one critic blurbed on the DVD cover. I forget which. Then I remembered 'Salem's Lot, and still had some hope that we might get a good film out of it (film adaptations of James Herbert novels tend to be bloody boring-- they cut out all the good bits to avoid the video nasty laws). Then they attach an unknown writer-director and Matthew Modine, a guy whose career was going nowhere fast in 1995 (though it did pick up again soon after this, and has almost hit its previous level). I got to the point where the only hope I had for this flick lay in Eric Stoltz, whom I have always loved and will always love, no matter how awful the films in which he appears (yes, I even forgave him Anaconda. He needed the money. Honest). So, finally, I got the chance to sit down and actually watch the thing... and it really is wonderful. It bears about as much resemblance to the James Herbert novel upon which it is based as the American all-beef Ball Park bears to its wondrous ancestor the haggis, but as with the scary meat products, each is great in its own way.

Tom Johnson (Modine, recently in Transporter 2) and Jeff Newman (Stoltz, recently of The Butterfly Effect) are partners. In the opening scene, the two of them are racing down a country road. Johnson pulls up alongside Newman's car and tries to get him to pull over so they can talk. Newman ignores him, but Johnson doesn't get too long to try-- he ends up playing chicken with a truck, losing, and going over an embankment to his death. Thanks to the magic of special effects, we see his soul fly off and inhabit an Irish Setter pup. (And through the magic of film, you can get an Irish Setter pup from a mom who looks kind of like a collie mix.) The pup, who eventually becomes the title character, has a series of very nasty adventures early in his life (the first half-hour of this film makes me wonder why anyone called it a family film-- it is relentlessly depressing) before meeting Rumbo (xXx's Samuel L. Jackson), a big Saint Bernard who offers to teach him the ropes. Fluke is unhappy with his life as a dog, however; he has recurring dreams of Newman and his family, and he feels that his family is in danger.

First, the bad things about the movie. Carlei is overly ham-handed with a number of his moral lessons (especially in the final voice-over, which any editor worth his salt should have burned rather than exposing it to the elements). If you're looking at the film as something to watch with the kiddies, you may have an uncomfortable time answering some questions from the younger ones about death and vivisection that are likely to be raised in the opening half-hour of the film. And the kid who voices Fluke-as-pup (Sam Gifaldi of the animated series Hey! Arnold) sounds as if he's reading, woodenly, off a teleprompter. The end, while not actually leaving any loose ends dangling, feels a little frayed. And Nancy Travis' line "...he needs a bath. He's filthy!"is perhaps the most unintentionally funny ever voiced in kids' films; you will never see so well-groomed and well-fed a road dog as Fluke.

The good things: well, the rest of the movie. The opening half-hour, while relentless, has no single scenes that will traumatize a kid any more than some of the stuff Disney put in their animated flicks when we were kids. Modine and Jackson have a great chemistry between them, and when Fluke starts spending most of his time around humans, things ride the line of sappy without ever quite crossing over. Most of all, Lynn Stalmaster, the High King of Casting Directors, made one of the most inspired choices of his career in Eric Stoltz. I can't explain why without ruining the crux of the film, but let's just say it would've been hard to achieve the effect the movie did without Eric Stoltz playing Newman. Perfect, perfect, casting.

Unless you're a diehard James Herbert fan who can't separate Fluke-the-film from Fluke-the-book, you'll probably end up loving this movie despite yourself. Yeah, yeah, the talking animal thing's way overdone. That doesn't mean it can't still be done well now and again. ****

By far one of my favorite movies when I was little, I was delighted to finally perch my DVD copy of "Fluke" in my movie library. Ever since the lines began to echo in my head ("Well, he's MY little fluke"), I've known my purchase of the flick was imminent. It is, truly, a touching, poignant, and haunting film that tells of loss, betrayal, realization, and redemption on one side, and forgiveness, resilience, and pure, simple understanding on the other. It is about learning to live your life, and learning to pick yourself up again. It's told through the eyes of a dog, but it transcends that.

My main complaint is that the movie can't make up its mind whether to be a romping family film (just watch the theatrical trailer; they cut out the whole "reincarnation" bit and sell it as a kiddie flick) or a full-fledged drama. As a result, the integrity of the film suffers, which is a true shame. As a kid, I loved the lighter bits which I, now older, view as the movie's main pratfall. It also tends to fall into a by-the-numbers rut in the first few sequences, (slight spoiler ahead) such as when the pup Fluke ends up in the pound and the horrible, mean people at the HUMANE SOCIETY whine about his constant barking and schedule him for a euthanasia. (As if a puppy would be put down for barking.) Clearly, this scene seeks to scold anyone who doesn't want dogs running free on the streets. An ideal I applauded a few years ago, but now I must view more realistically. If the producers had allowed the film to launch into a truly moving drama, perhaps "Fluke" would have gained a larger audience. Instead, it may leave the kids wandering off after the first half, and the adults fast-forwarding to the later half.

The decision is yours to make, depending on your age, but my guess is most of you will fall in love with this unique story of redemption and understanding.