`Benji' 's raggy charm reveals heart, humor
Benji is back. Or rather a new story about a lovable and smart dog by that name is back.
In creator/writer/director Joe Camp's previous Benji films, the danger was external: Benji saves a couple of kids from nasty kidnappers or a litter of mountain lion cubs from a variety of threats. Here, the story is darker and closer to home. Fourteen-year-old Colby (Nick Whitaker, a promising Utah actor) lives in Tennessee with his faintly protective mother and his abusive father, Hatchett (Chris Kendrick), who runs a puppy mill in the backyard. The dysfunctional family situation is unsettling; the mother shows bruises and at one point Hatchett throws Colby to the ground. When Hatchett's prized breeder gets knocked up by a scampy stray, he kicks out the one puppy in the litter that doesn't look like the dogs' mother. Colby saves him and secretly raises "Puppy" in a really tricked-up fort (this kid has a career in engineering ahead of him) in the woods.
Meanwhile, two hapless animal-control officers rush about trying to round up the stray, whom they've dubbed Lizard Tongue, and for their troubles end up diving face first into the mud and getting stuck in the rear with tranquilizer darts -- the usual slapstick children's film fare. As the plot cranks up, Lizard Tongue teams up with his offspring, Puppy, and they try to liberate the sick mama dog from her cage.
In this film as in the others, the dogs rule the day by showing intelligence, persistence, fortitude, and ingenuity. They have incredibly expressive faces and bodies, and they send doggie semaphores to each other. There are enough tricks, including a "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"-like leap into a river, to satisfy an action-minded kid.
In the end, three of the characters learn they have to take a stand: Colby; one of the animal control guys, who finally follows his intuition about what the dogs are trying to tell him; and Puppy, who never gives up trying to save his mom.
What does this have to do with Benji, you ask? Well, at the beginning of the film, you find out there's a national search on for a new dog to play Benji. Without giving away too much, let's just say that that plot intersects with the others and all is resolved.
Camp's films are independently produced, use little-known actors, and there's a slightly amateurish quality to them. But "Benji: Off the Leash!" has a raggy charm, like the dogs, and a solid moral ending. For a late-summer children's film, it does the job.
Catherine Foster can be reached at foster@globe.com.
