Red Dog

""All the sad faces in the world ain't gonna work, so you can just stop.""

- John Grant

Red Dog is a 2011 Australian film directed by Kriv Stenders, starring Josh Lucas and Rachael Taylor and introducing Koko as the title character. The film tells the story of a dog in a Western Australian mining town and how he affects its inhabitants, including an American drifter, a secretary, an Italian immigrant and a quiet man with a tragic past.


 * Anachronism Stew: The film features a drive-in screening of Jaws (1975) in 1973. Nobody smokes throughout the film despite there being no restrictions on it.
 * Bechdel Test: Red Dog doesn't count as a man, so the film passes despite featuring only three female characters.
 * Dogged Nice Guy: Vanno. "Dogged", haha.
 * Framing Device: The bulk of the story is told as a series of anecdotes in a pub to a visiting truck driver.
 * Heroic Dog: Red Dog gets John out of a pub brawl and later saves a man's life, though inadvertently.
 * Hospital Hottie: Rose. It's actually a veterinary clinic, but whatever.
 * Kick the Dog: Literally, at least the dog part; some pub-goers time Red Dog eating a can of dog food, then try to up the ante by having him eat a live chicken, but are foiled by John. The caretaker's wife takes it one further later on and tries to kill Red Dog by shooting him.
 * Old Dog: Red Dog in the narrative present.
 * Puppy Dog Eyes: "All the sad faces in the world ain't gonna work, so you can just stop", says John when he meets Red Dog, who wants to hitch a ride in his bus. Sure they won't.
 * Worthy Opponent: Offered as a possible reason why Red Dog and Red Cat became friends.
 * Unreliable Narrator: Did Red Dog really hop a ship to Japan?
 * Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The film is based on a book by Louis de Bernières, which in turn is loosely based on anecdotes and even poems collected by Nancy Gillespie. All we know for sure is that there was a dog known to many as Red Dog who traveled Western Australia's Pilbara region, spending much of the meantime in the town of Dampier, adopted a bus driver as his master and  Much of what else happens to Red Dog throughout the film is based on common elements of various allegedly true events and therefore probably have a kernel of truth to them
 * Walk the Earth: John's life consisted of this before he met Nancy and Red Dog. Red Dog does a lot of this, too.