you lucky dog (1998)

disney furry content from the nineties.

And I’m back with part two of my ludicrous mission of watching every single DCOM ever made, this time with a late 90s movie that feels like a DCOM, but not quite as much as it could.

Let me explain.

You Lucky Dog is a 1998 disney channel original movie starring Kirk Cameron in the main role, and Bogus the Dog in the role of Lucky, the dog. It follows Jack, a former teen celebrity who became famous for his ability to psychically communicate with dogs – i.e, he could read the puppies’ minds. In adulthood, however, he lost his gift and instead of going to college or something he decides to open a dog therapy office, where he allegedly gives behavioural therapy to dogs.

One of these days, he meets Mr Windsor, an eccentric old man who is worried about his dog Lucky, and for the first time in years Jack feels a psychic connection with a dog again. He explains to Windsor that the puppy is afraid for him because of three mysterious figures in his life, then promptly sends the man away as he is freaked out by his connection with Windsor’s dog.

A few days (or weeks, who knows) later, he receives the news that Windsor has passed away and his dog Lucky is set to inherit $64M, which have been trusted to Jack as trustee of the estate, meaning Jack is pretty much rich – and at a good time, because his office was closed after people found out he was a fraud.

The rest of the movie follows Jack building a connection with Lucky, and the three stooges, the nephews of the late Mr Windsor, building a case to prove that Jack is clinically insane and cannot be trusted with the fortune, which culminates in a court scene where Jack, thanks to Lucky, finds out his owner has been (obviously and predictably) poisoned by his nephews in a way to speed up their inheritance, except they didn’t know their uncle thought them too incompetent to handle that amount of money.

This movie is absolutely nuts, and not in a completely bad way.

It’s no High School Musical, of course, and it STILL isn’t a musical, but it is incredibly weird and zainy, and it is greatly improved by the presences of Kirk Cameron, James Avery and Bogus the Dog – ESPECIALLY Cameron who puts his entire body and soul into imitating Bogus’ expressions, his bark and his mannerisms. The dude is basically the ‘On all levels except physical, I am a wolf’ meme but with a dog. He took method acting to a whole new level.

As for the rest of the movie, at first I genuinely assumed it would be about a man turning into a dog or trading souls with a dog (in my defense, Disney DOES have a movie about that, and I am NOT excited to watch it), and I’m very happy it’s more original and weirder than that – one scene in the beginning really reminded me of the final scene in Saltburn, except Jack isn’t naked or this would be a very different movie.

The script is, I think, where the movie lacks. It’s simple and predictable, like the plot, and the best scenes are undoubtedly watching Cameron be a dog. But everything else, from the cinematography to the set design and wardrobe is kinda meh.

One thing that stands out, however, is the final scene: where Jack psychically connects to Lucky and watches a memory of the dog (IN COLOUR, for some reason) that proves Windsor was poisoned by his nephews. All of this happens in a courtroom, by the way, with a jury that could really afford being a bit more sceptical.