Dog Gone is based on the true story of Gonker, a dog suffering with Addison’s disease. When he goes missing, he has to be found before his monthly injections are due. Gonker’s owner Fielding Marshall (Johnny Berchtold) has to team up with his Dad, John, (Rob Lowe), who he has a fractured relationship with, to search the Appalachian trail for their beloved pet.

Gonker, obtained from a pound, charmed the family and you would have to be pretty hard-hearted not to be affected by this film. You might feel that nearly everyone the pair encounter on their travels going out of their way to help them is a bit unrealistic, and maybe it is, but it works. Also, whilst John disapproves of Fielding’s choices and his lack of a work ethic, writer Nick Santora presents him as reasonable rather than an uncaring ogre. That makes their bonding during the search much more believable.

All the performances are as good as you could possibly expect, including Berchtold, Lowe and Kimberley Paisley-Williams makes so much of a smaller role as John’s wife and Fielding’s Mum.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

On the subject of a missing family member, there is Noise. Since the 1960s, over 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico, many of them women trafficked for sex. Police, the army and politicians are all implicated in the kidnappings by crime gangs.

In 2019 director Natalia Beristain made a documentary on the subject of Mexican femicide in called Nosotras. She has followed that with this fictional story about Julia (Julieta Egurrola) trying to locate her missing 25 year old daughter Gertrudis.

Although fictionalised, there is still a documentary like feel, helped by real relatives of the missing appearing and a raw performance by Egurrola, who is Beristain’s Mum. There is a real grit and believability to a number of scenes, particularly when Julia’s friend and journalist, Abril, played by the excellent Teresa Ruiz, is snatched from a bus. There is also a scary and thrilling sequence at a demonstration that acts as the climax to the movie.

Not everything works. There are brief imagined sequences that do not work and the search loses focus at about the half way mark. However, this is an impressive piece of film making about an important subject.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10

I was pretty sure that I knew what I would be getting with the Bank of Dave. It is based on a true story of Dave Fishwick who tried to set up a community bank in Burnley and brought to the screen by director Chris Foggin with writer Piers Ashworth who have been behind the Fisherman’s Friends movies and Save the Cinema last year.

I felt it was sure to be a feelgood crowd pleaser and I was right. The story unfolds as you would expect, with the little guy/everyman triumphing over the establishment in true Ealing-comedy style. I found it very effective and affecting. Rory Kinnear is impressive as Dave but it is the brilliant Joel Fry, in a rare starring role as Hugh, a solicitor to helps Dave achieve his dream.
Rating: 8 out of 10

Another year and another true crime documentary on Netflix. The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker tells the not very surprising story of homeless Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, aka Kai. He gained some notoriety in 2013 as he appeared on a news show describing how he prevented someone being attacked by hitting the perpetrator with his hatchet, thus going viral as Kai, The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker.

He started appearing on chat shows etc., but was clearly an unstable guy. So it did not seem at all shocking to me, when, a few months later, he killed a man. This very conventional documentary is mildly diverting stuff. The fact that he murdered someone is disclosed at the start so there are no shocks.
Rating: 5 out of 10

Also on Netflix this month….
In the Kenyan romantic comedy, Disconnect: The Wedding Planner, a sequel to 2018’s Disconnect, wedding planner Otis (Pascal Tokidi) is scammed, and, facing financial ruin, he has to desperately try to impress a potential investor by planning a luxury wedding. It is neither funny nor romantic. Jungle is a Korean sci-fi film that is set in the future, and guess what, that future is dystopian! There is not a shred of originality as a mother fights for her daughter’s existence.

Ratings out of 10:
Disconnect: The Wedding Planner: 2.5
Jungle: 2