Before long Ethan's dad goes off the rails into alcoholism. Except, of course, Ethan lucks up and gets the coin back after using the sighting of a rat in their house as a subterfuge so he can slip it back into the case. This reminded me somewhat of the Saint Bernard in "The Sandlot" that chewed up a baseball signed by home-run slugger Babe Ruth. Ethan takes Bailey for a walk and scares him into pooping out the coin. Later, unbeknownst to the father, Bailey gulps one of his valuable collector's coins as the father is about to show them to his boss over dinner one evening. Ethan's traveling salesman father (Luke Kirby of "Halloween: Resurrection") doesn't like Bailey, especially after the pooch trashes his at-home office. Naturally, Bailey cavorts around the premises and behaves like a loose cannon on deck.
Ethan raises Bailey and basically gives him free rein of the house. The action unfolds in the early 1960s, about the time of the Russian missile crisis between President Kennedy and the Kremlin. The family that adopt Bailey is lead by a father with a weakness for alcohol. However, "A Dog's Purpose" is not without its drama. Life is good for Bailey since he finds himself a family with a kid, and adventures galore occur. The dog starts out as a male doggie named Bailey and it narrates the film from its perspective.
Bruce Cameron's novel about a canine that goes through a series o reincarnations, while it ponders its' purpose in life. Nevertheless, director Lasse Hallström's "A Dog's Purpose" was doggone good.
But it is a nice movie and has a good ending, as we find out this dog's purpose. And that dogs can think in the same language as we do. It is fantasy of course, the idea that dogs can be sequentially reincarnated and remember their former lives. The mature Hannah is played by Peggy Lipton. When a teenager he had a girlfriend, Hannah, they drifted apart and late in life they were brought together by a dog. The older Ethan is played by Dennis Quaid. We see Ethan at various stages, a high school athlete with a scholarship to college, and finally as an older man in present day. The story starts in the early 1960s when young Ethan, about 10, finds a dog and begs his parents into letting him keep it. As Bailey then Buddy then Tino then Ellie. Josh Gad, a very versatile actor, has a nice voice for this, the voice of the various dogs, each succeeding one a reincarnation of the previous one. That story he made up on the spot became the story in the book and now the movie. So as they drove along he made up this story for her, of a dog that had several lives and several owners through reincarnation. The DVD has a number of interesting "extras." Of interest to me, when the book's author and his now wife were dating, he found out she never owned a dog.
My wife and I enjoyed this movie, we watched it at home on DVD from our public library. I am rating the movie 7 out of 10 stars because this is the type of movie that hits straight to the center of the heart and stays with you. Just ensure that you have to tissue within reach, because this is a tearjerker of a movie. "A Dog's Purpose" is definitely a family movie, and one that is quite worth taking the time to sit down and watch. But the dogs really stole the show, especially the two dogs that were around the Ethan characters in the various stages of his life. Apa (playing teenaged Ethan) and Dennis Quaid (playing adult Ethan) whom carried the movie with their performances.
The acting in the movie was good, and it was especially K.J. It really helped bring the dog Bailey to life on the screen and gave it so much more personality and made it all the more lovable and easy to bond with the dog. The voice over for the dog really worked quite well, because it was done rather nicely, without keeping it sappy or as a comedy aspect. These two segments served absolutely no purpose to the story, as the heart of the story was the bond and connection between the dog Bailey and its owner Ethan. But on the other hand, then I feel that the part of having the movie broken down into segments, with the dog returning to live different lives was sort of strange, and the two middle segments where the dog returned as a police dog and a pet to a lonely woman was fully and wholeheartedly there solely as serving as filling for the movie being able to pass as a feature length movie. And yeah, it is a movie that will have the audience in tears, no doubt about that. On one hand it was an emotional movie, true. Right, well I must say that I am somewhat conflicted as to what to think of the movie. So with that in mind, I tracked down the 2017 movie and gave it a go. I was recommended to watch "A Dog's Purpose" as it was allegedly a very emotional and touching story.