As I watched this film I was reminded constantly of the sideshows that used to accompany touring amusement midways back in my early childhood in the 1960s. Back then, people with unfortunate deformities and medical conditions were recruited by unscrupulous shysters and exploited -- at pitiful wages -- for the public's amusement. I found the storyline of this movie to be thin and weak, and have a very difficult time seeing it as anything other than a feeble rationale for a cinematic freak-show -- the evidence of which, I think, can be derived by simply tallying the amount of screen time devoted to exhibiting those unfortunate human beings pulled from the streets of Bucharest, albeit in quasi-fictitious scenarios. (I would dearly love to know, BTW, how well these people were compensated for placing themselves on display for the benefit of well-heeled western audiences, and just how much their involvement has enriched their lives compared with the pampered North American actors.) Some have stated that the merit of this film is its gut-wrenching appeal to the emotions and call to the viewer to assess one's own morals, however, sapient adults do not need to graphically examine through a cinematic microscope the harsh circumstances of the despondent and destitute to accept the existence, or understand the variances, of man's inhumanity to man. Claims of promoting social conscience are equally spurious, as the viewing of such rude exhibitions from the comfort of one's easy-chair or in an air-conditioned theater does absolutely nothing to remedy such gross inequities of human existence in a very unfair and unjust world -- no matter how much we might like to pretend otherwise.
Review of The Wild Dogs
