''Dog Eat Dog'' is a 2016 American action thriller film directed by Paul Schrader (also served as the cast of the film for the first time). The screenplay by Matthew Wilder is based on

Edward Bunker Edward Heward Bunker (December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005) was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, convicted felon and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films. He wrote the scripts for—a ...

's 1995 novel of the same name. The film stars

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. Born into the Coppola family, he is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Gui ...

and

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for four Academy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, t ...

. The film was the closing entry for the

Directors' Fortnight The Directors' Fortnight (french: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) is an independent selection of the Cannes Film Festival. It was started in 1969 by the French Directors Guild after the events of May 1968 resulted in cancellation of the Cannes festiv ...

section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

Three former prisoners - Troy, Mad Dog and Diesel - are hired to kidnap a baby and share a big ransom payment.

Cast

as Troy *

as Mad Dog * Christopher Matthew Cook as Diesel *

Omar Dorsey Omar J. Dorsey (born December 22, 1975) is an American actor. He has appeared in films '' The Blind Side'' (2009), ''Django Unchained'' (2012), and '' Selma'' (2014) playing James Orange. In 2016, Dorsey began starring as Hollingsworth "Holly ...

as Moon Man * Paul Schrader as Grecco The Greek *

Louisa Krause Louisa Noel Krause (born May 20, 1986) is an American actress. After studying drama in college, Krause appeared in numerous off-Broadway productions while also appearing in episodes of New York-based network television series. Her first film role ...

as Zoe *

Melissa Bolona Melissa Boloña (born December 28, 1989) is an American actress and model. She starred in the films '' Acts of Violence'', '' The Hurricane Heist'', ''Malicious'', and '' Dog Eat Dog''. Early life and education Boloña was born in Connecticut, ...

as Lina * Chelcie Melton as Sheila * Chelsea Mee as Madeleine * John Patrick Jordan as Jack Cates * Magi Avila as Nanny Carmen * Jeff Hilliard as Gun Enthusiast * Sam Caminero as Dan Rubin

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

on the film began on October 19, 2015 in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. Filming also took place in Sheffield Lake, and it ended on November 23, 2015.

Release

The film had its premiere as the closing entry for the

section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2016. It was released on November 4, 2016 in the United States.

Reception

On review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 49% based on 71 reviews, with an average rating of 5.06/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''Dog Eat Dog''s refreshing bundle of quirks and surfeit of visual style aren't quite enough to compensate for an aimlessly forgettable story." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Peter Bradshaw Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, writing, "It's the right director for the right project and the result is Schrader's best for years: a lairy, nasty, tasty crime thriller built on black-comic chaos."

Todd McCarthy Todd McCarthy (born February 16, 1950) is an American film critic and author. He wrote for '' Variety'' for 31 years as its chief film critic until 2010. In October of that year, he joined ''The Hollywood Reporter'', where he subsequently served ...

of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...

'' wrote, "A rare film to have been shot in Cleveland, ''Dog Eat Dog'' definitely looks like it was shot on the cheap but puts what it needs to up on the screen with vigor and wit." Jesse Cataldo of '' Slant Magazine'' gave the film 1.5 out of 4 stars and commented that "The film has a few thrilling moments, but its pleasures are fleeting and always balanced by oppressive ugliness, representing an even deeper dive into a dismal new aesthetic founded on chaos rather than contemplation."

References

External links

* {{Paul Schrader 2016 films American action thriller films American crime thriller films 2016 black comedy films 2016 action thriller films 2016 crime thriller films Films shot in Cleveland Films directed by Paul Schrader Films based on crime novels Films based on American novels Films with screenplays by Paul Schrader American black comedy films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films