Becky Soto

+7 clout

Sep 22, 2026

I put on Last of the Dogmen last Tuesday after the kids finally crashed and I was half expecting some dusty old nothing, but holy cats it sucked me right in. Tom Berenger as Lewis Gates, this beat-up Montana bounty hunter who looks like he hasn't slept right since the seventies. He's got that permanent squint and a limp in his soul from whatever happened to him before the movie even starts. Three convicts bust out and the local big shots hire him to go fetch them in the Oxbow, deep Rockies country where the maps get embarrassed and quit. He finds the spot where the trail should end and instead there's just chaos, blood, a snapped arrow sticking out of a tree like a middle finger from history, and zero bodies. Gates just stands there muttering something like "well ain't that a kick in the head" which I'm pretty sure is not the real line but that's how it lives in my brain now. He hauls the arrow down to Lillian Sloan, Barbara Hershey playing this professor who knows every damn thing about Cheyenne culture and keeps her hair perfect even when she's climbing rocks. She's the kind of woman who lights up when something impossible walks into her office. She takes one look and starts spinning about the Dog Soldiers, this warrior society that was supposed to have been wiped out over a century ago. They head back into the woods together and I swear the camera just falls in love with those mountains. Every shot feels like somebody took a deep breath and held it for you. Snow, pines, light cutting sideways through the trees. I kept pausing just to stare. The two of them bicker and then stop bickering and then start caring about each other in that quiet adult way that doesn't need a pop song montage. Berenger does that thing where he tries to stay hard and closed off and Hershey just keeps asking better questions until the cracks show. There's a moment where he admits he's not chasing the money anymore, he's chasing whatever made that arrow, and she softens and I actually laughed out loud because the tough guy finally said the quiet part. I'm a sucker for that. Also there's this deputy or tracker guy hanging around the edges who keeps saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and I loved him immediately. Total dope, pure heart, the kind of side character who would give you his last can of beans without thinking twice. Movies need more of those guys. Kurtwood Smith shows up as the hard-nosed lawman type who just wants the convicts caught and doesn't give two hoots what's living up in those hills. He's perfect at being the guy who thinks the wilderness is just real estate waiting for a fence. Steve Reevis is in there too and he carries that quiet weight like he already knows the ending. When they finally stumble on the village it doesn't feel like a big effects reveal. It feels like stepping into a dream somebody else has been carefully keeping alive. The Dogmen aren't cartoon warriors or mystical shamans waiting to hand out life lessons. They're people who chose to vanish rather than get swallowed. Gates and Sloan have to figure out how to keep the modern world from rolling over them like a bulldozer, and the clock is ticking because those escaped convicts are still out there making noise and drawing attention. I won't lie, the middle stretches a little. There's some walking and talking and staring at mist that could have been tightened, and once or twice the score gets a bit syrupy and I rolled my eyes. But then a horse gallops through a stream or somebody looses an arrow that feels earned and I'm right back on board. The romance never turns gooey. It's two lonely people recognizing the same hunger in each other. And the folklore sits easy. Nobody stops the movie to explain why you should feel a certain way. The story just trusts you to walk into the woods and feel it yourself. By the end I was rooting so hard for them to pull off the impossible that I yelled at the screen when the bad decisions started piling up. Classic me. I even rewound the final stretch because I wanted to watch Berenger make that last choice one more time. This isn't a perfect picture. Some of the dialogue clunks and you can tell it was made when movies still believed a good yarn and pretty scenery were enough. But I sat there grinning like an idiot through most of it. It's got heart, horses, danger, and a real sense that some secrets deserve to stay secret. If you like watching Tom Berenger look haunted while Barbara Hershey looks brilliant under pine needles, this one's got your name on it. I already want to go back up that mountain again. Somebody stop me before I buy a plane ticket to Montana and start looking for arrows in trees!

+1 −10Flag as problematic

Comments and reviews

Becky Soto
+7 clout
Sep 22, 2026
I put on Last of the Dogmen last Tuesday after the kids finally crashed and I was half expecting some dusty old nothing, but holy cats it sucked me right in. Tom Berenger as Lewis Gates, this beat-up Montana bounty hunter who looks like he hasn't slept right since the seventies. He's got that permanent squint and a limp in his soul from whatever happened to him before the movie even starts. Three convicts bust out and the local big shots hire him to go fetch them in the Oxbow, deep Rockies country where the maps get embarrassed and quit. He finds the spot where the trail should end and instead there's just chaos, blood, a snapped arrow sticking out of a tree like a middle finger from history, and zero bodies. Gates just stands there muttering something like "well ain't that a kick in the head" which I'm pretty sure is not the real line but that's how it lives in my brain now. He hauls the arrow down to Lillian Sloan, Barbara Hershey playing this professor who knows every damn thing about Cheyenne culture and keeps her hair perfect even when she's climbing rocks. She's the kind of woman who lights up when something impossible walks into her office. She takes one look and starts spinning about the Dog Soldiers, this warrior society that was supposed to have been wiped out over a century ago. They head back into the woods together and I swear the camera just falls in love with those mountains. Every shot feels like somebody took a deep breath and held it for you. Snow, pines, light cutting sideways through the trees. I kept pausing just to stare. The two of them bicker and then stop bickering and then start caring about each other in that quiet adult way that doesn't need a pop song montage. Berenger does that thing where he tries to stay hard and closed off and Hershey just keeps asking better questions until the cracks show. There's a moment where he admits he's not chasing the money anymore, he's chasing whatever made that arrow, and she softens and I actually laughed out loud because the tough guy finally said the quiet part. I'm a sucker for that. Also there's this deputy or tracker guy hanging around the edges who keeps saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and I loved him immediately. Total dope, pure heart, the kind of side character who would give you his last can of beans without thinking twice. Movies need more of those guys. Kurtwood Smith shows up as the hard-nosed lawman type who just wants the convicts caught and doesn't give two hoots what's living up in those hills. He's perfect at being the guy who thinks the wilderness is just real estate waiting for a fence. Steve Reevis is in there too and he carries that quiet weight like he already knows the ending. When they finally stumble on the village it doesn't feel like a big effects reveal. It feels like stepping into a dream somebody else has been carefully keeping alive. The Dogmen aren't cartoon warriors or mystical shamans waiting to hand out life lessons. They're people who chose to vanish rather than get swallowed. Gates and Sloan have to figure out how to keep the modern world from rolling over them like a bulldozer, and the clock is ticking because those escaped convicts are still out there making noise and drawing attention. I won't lie, the middle stretches a little. There's some walking and talking and staring at mist that could have been tightened, and once or twice the score gets a bit syrupy and I rolled my eyes. But then a horse gallops through a stream or somebody looses an arrow that feels earned and I'm right back on board. The romance never turns gooey. It's two lonely people recognizing the same hunger in each other. And the folklore sits easy. Nobody stops the movie to explain why you should feel a certain way. The story just trusts you to walk into the woods and feel it yourself. By the end I was rooting so hard for them to pull off the impossible that I yelled at the screen when the bad decisions started piling up. Classic me. I even rewound the final stretch because I wanted to watch Berenger make that last choice one more time. This isn't a perfect picture. Some of the dialogue clunks and you can tell it was made when movies still believed a good yarn and pretty scenery were enough. But I sat there grinning like an idiot through most of it. It's got heart, horses, danger, and a real sense that some secrets deserve to stay secret. If you like watching Tom Berenger look haunted while Barbara Hershey looks brilliant under pine needles, this one's got your name on it. I already want to go back up that mountain again. Somebody stop me before I buy a plane ticket to Montana and start looking for arrows in trees!
+1 −10Flag as problematic

Last of the Dogmen

Comments and reviews

Report a mistake

Woke labels