Belong to Us

I found this a really refreshing movie with believable, natural writing. Elegant, simple and centered on the simple act of caring for those around you. Obviously made by people who have been taught by dogs how to love.

This is a wonderful, charming family movie with an important message. The young actors are delightful. And I loved watching the big beautiful Shepard Dog. Both the very professional writing and acting are explicitly devised to appeal to young viewers as well as adults, to the whole family. This film has enough grit to keep parents interested and enough humor sprinkled here and there to appeal to almost everyone. This film is advertised as a story about how a little girl rescues a dog from a dog fighting ring. Don't be troubled about the dogfighting. Because it is a family film, the film makers used very special and clever photography for disturbing scenes so not a lot is really seen and will not be upsetting to most young viewers. Use careful judgement for age. But the cruelty of dogfighting is presented in a responsible way for a family film. This is a well-made and entertaining film that every family should see, and it is a great gift for young girls in the family. I bought four copies.

Movie had opportunity to really drive home a message about illegal dog fighting, but simply uses it to build a weak, yawn-filled story line that never really delivers in any real way. The dog was used to tie together two or three sub plots. To be honest, the dog, a great example of a German Shepherd, should really have had more lines in this flick because the acting by the humans was simply horrendous and the writing pedestrian at best. It's not easy to make a good dog movie, Belong to Us is unfortunately not one of them.