A Dog’s Journey is a 2019 American comedy-drama film directed by Gail Mancuso and written by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Maya Forbes, and Wally Wolodarsky. The film is based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Cameron, and a sequel to the 2017 film A Dog’s Purpose. The film stars Josh Gad, Dennis Quaid, Marg Helgenberger, Betty Gilpin, Kathryn Prescott, and Henry Lau.

The movie starts off a few years after the end of the previous film. Bailey is now an aging dog and lives on the farm with the now married Ethan and Hannah. Also in the farm house are their 2-year-old granddaughter Clarity June “CJ” (Emma Volk) and her mother Gloria (Gilpin). Hannah’s son Henry having died in an accident Gloria is dependent on Hannah & Ethan to take care of her daughter. She herself isn’t very good at being a mom and Bailey has to rescue the toddler who wanders off and goes into a horse’s pen, attracting Ethan’s attention. Gloria is shown to be an incompetent mother with a hatred for dogs, a distrust of her dead husband Henry’s parents (Hannah and Ethan) and an ambition to have a singing career. She leaves with CJ accusing Hannah & Ethan of being close to CJ only for the insurance money that Henry left for his daughter.

A short while after that Bailey starts to suffer from cancer and soon is put down as his condition worsens. Ethan holds Bailey lovingly and tells him to take care of CJ, before he is lethally injected. Bailey, now dead, is then seen running through a grassy field towards young CJ. Nine years later, Bailey, who has been reincarnated as a female beagle named Molly, is part of a litter of puppies who are adopted out until only Molly and her favorite brother Rocky are left. She sees a young boy named Trent (Ian Chen) and his family adopting Rocky. She also sees a young girl with him, who she recognizes is CJ, now 11 years old (Abby Ryder Forston). Molly, remembering the promise she made as Bailey to Ethan, runs outside to CJ. CJ, now living in a house with Gloria, takes Molly home with her and hides her from her mother. Gloria eventually sees Molly and scolds CJ for getting a dog behind her back, but CJ persuades her mother to let her keep the dog given how neglected she feels.

Over time, CJ and Molly grow increasingly close, along with Trent and Rocky. CJ, now a teenager (Prescott), reveals to Trent (Lau) that she wants to drop out of high school and move to New York with her father’s insurance settlement to pursue a career in music. While CJ is busy, Hannah and Ethan visit Gloria’s home with a box of Henry’s old belongings, wanting to see CJ. However, Gloria, still angry over their discord, closes the door on them, but not before Molly takes a liking to Ethan, and he recognizes her as Bailey and reminds Molly of her request to protect CJ. CJ begins to date Shane, a store clerk whom Molly distrusts and tries to protect her from. Shane insists that they attend a party, which gets busted by police for underage drinking. Molly is separated from her and taken to a shelter. Trent retrieves Molly and reunites her with CJ. CJ is sentenced to community service at a facility that teaches dogs how to detect cancer and Molly teaches herself how to signal she has smelled the scent. Shane assaults CJ, and Gloria’s nonchalant response to that and revelation that she has spent Henry’s insurance settlement provokes CJ to leave with Molly.

While leaving town, CJ discovers Shane is stalking her, and eventually, Shane rear-ends CJ’s car, inadvertently killing Molly. Afraid that he might be arrested, Shane promptly flees the scene in a panic. Molly is then shown running through the same grassy field that Bailey was when he died. Bailey, again reincarnated, this time as a male English Mastiff named Big Dog, lives with his new owner, Joe, and is a guard dog at his gas station/convenience store. Although he enjoys his new life, he misses CJ. One day, CJ, now a young adult, visits the store, and Big Dog recognizes and engages with her. After she leaves, he lives the rest of his life missing her, and eventually dies of old age. He is then shown running through the grassy field again. Bailey, once again reincarnated, this time as a Biewer Terrier named Max, is at an adoption event in New York City. To avoid being adopted by anyone until he can find CJ, he uses an aggressive, biting persona, until he sees CJ and chases her to her apartment building. CJ is reluctant to keep Max, but she learns that if Max isn’t adopted by the next day, he will be put down. CJ is living with her boyfriend and working as a dog walker while aspiring to a musical career, but can’t overcome her stage fright. She adopts Max, who befriends her boyfriend’s dog.

While CJ is returning a dog to a client after a walk, Max smells a familiar scent. Leading CJ on a chase throught the hallway, he ends up at the door of an apartment newly rented by Trent and his girlfriend (he also realizes that Rocky has since died). Max, sensing that CJ and Trent have feelings for each other, intentionally misbehaves, sabotaging CJ’s relationship with her boyfriend, causing them to break up and her to move out of his apartment. After staying with various friends, Max pulls CJ toward Trent on the street, who offers his guest bedroom for her to stay in. Soon after, Max remembers learning how to diagnose cancer back during Molly’s life, and signals CJ that he smells cancer on Trent. A doctor confirms the diagnosis and Trent begins chemotherapy. His shallow girlfriend leaves him, leaving CJ as his primary caretaker. Eventually, Trent’s doctor informs him that he is cancer-free, and at Trent’s urging, CJ accepts a meeting with Gloria after not having seen her in years.

She has warmed up to dogs and gives CJ some of the contents that were in Henry’s box which Hannah and Ethan brought to her house during Molly’s life, which are revealed to be letters that Henry wrote to Gloria while she was pregnant with CJ. These notes inspire CJ to write more songs and perform them in front of an audience, finally kicking off her musical career. Trent wants to repay CJ and Max for their help, so he takes them on a road trip to Hannah and Ethan’s farm in Michigan, where they reunite for the first time since Gloria stormed out with CJ during Bailey’s life. Ethan immediately recognizes Max as Bailey. CJ is skeptical until Max performs a unique trick with Ethan that only Bailey would know. Ethan tells CJ that he had asked the dying Bailey to look after her. CJ realizes that Bailey brought her and Trent together as adults and saved Trent’s life, leading her to finally understand that Bailey, Molly, Big Dog, and Max are all the same dog.

CJ and Trent embrace their love for each other, and eventually marry and have their first child, a boy. Gloria reconciles with CJ, Hannah and Ethan. Ethan dies in bed, surrounded by family and with Bailey at his side. Bailey ages and dies as well, with CJ at his side. The movie ends with Bailey running through the grassy field, morphing backward through his previous incarnations, before crossing the Rainbow Bridge and being reunited with Ethan again in Heaven.

Cue the waterworks! Although I liked the previous film better, this one made me cry a lot more. Damn these tears! It didn’t make as much money as the first one. I give it a 7.5 outta 10!

A Dog’s Purpose is a 2017 American comedy-drama adventure film directed by Lasse Hallström and written by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells, Maya Forbes, and Wally Wolodarsky, based on the 2010 novel of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron. The film stars Britt Robertson, KJ Apa, Juliet Rylance, John Ortiz, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Peggy Lipton (in her final film before her death in 2019), Dennis Quaid, and Josh Gad. The film, like the book, tells the story of a devoted dog who is looking for his rightful purpose and wants to fulfill it.

In the 1950s, a newborn feral beagle/German Shepherd/terrier mix puppy named Toby wonders what life’s true purpose is. Weeks later, while playing with his siblings, Toby is whisked away to the dog pound and is quickly euthanized, wondering if “fun” truly is life’s purpose. Toby’s spirit is reincarnated as a newborn Red Retriever puppy in 1961. Toby leaves his cage at a puppy mill and is found by two garbage men who plan to sell him. They leave to drink, and Toby is spotted locked inside their pick-up truck by a kindhearted mother and her eight-year-old son Ethan Montgomery, who rescue him from heatstroke. They bring Toby home and introduce him to Ethan’s father. After they convince Ethan’s father, the dog is allowed to stay and is renamed Bailey.

Bailey and Ethan bond quickly, especially over the summer when the family visits Ethan’s maternal grandparents’ farm, and Bailey now believes Ethan alone is his purpose. Years pass, and after several attempts at advancing in his job fail, Ethan’s father has become a deadbeat alcoholic. Ethan goes to a fair with Bailey and meets Hannah, whom he soon begins dating. Ethan and Hannah spend their summer together happily though their senior years are upcoming, but they plan to go to the same school; Ethan getting a football scholarship and Hannah following him on an academic one. When he goes home one night, Ethan’s father is drunk and shouting at Ethan’s mother. He turns on Ethan then and when his mother tries to keep them separated, he shoves her to the ground. Ethan orders his father to leave and never come back. Later, at a football game watched by scouts, Ethan is offered a full scholarship to Michigan State, but that night a vindictive classmate named Todd throws a lit firecracker into Ethan’s house, which results in a house fire. Bailey alerts Ethan, who goes to save his mother. Unable to get out of the door, they head out through his mother’s bedroom window upstairs.

Ethan first lowers her with her sheets to the neighbors below, then saves Bailey. However, he drops his rope and must jump, badly fracturing his leg and ending his athletic scholarship. Bailey attacks Todd, who is arrested by the police when firecrackers fall out of his pocket. Now, Ethan must go to an agricultural school where he will learn to take over his grandparents’ farm. Falling into depression, Ethan breaks off his romance with Hannah before leaving for college, while Bailey stays with Ethan’s grandparents. Shortly afterwards, Bailey becomes old and his health begins deteriorating. Ethan’s grandparents take Bailey to the veterinarian’s office, but Dr. Joyce is unable to save him, and Ethan comes into the office and watches as his beloved dog is put to sleep. The moment he passes away, Bailey reincarnates into another dog life, a female German Shepherd puppy, who grows into a police dog named Ellie, sometime in the late 1970s/early 1980s, while possessing full memories of her past lives.

Ellie is partnered with a widowed officer named Jakob of the Chicago Police Department and works hard at “seeking” and “finding”, now seeing the job as life’s purpose. The two form a close relationship which ends after Ellie saves a kidnapped girl from drowning and is then fatally shot by the kidnapper. Jakob breaks down in tears as his precious dog dies in his arms. Reincarnated again in the mid-1980s as a male Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppy, Bailey forms a bond with an Atlanta college student named Maya who names him Tino. Maya is lonely, and Tino makes it his purpose to find her some happiness. She starts a relationship with a classmate named Al whom she begins seeing after Tino falls for Al’s dog, a black and white female Landseer named Roxy. Maya and Al marry and have 3 children. In love with Roxy and now seeing her as his purpose, Tino is heartbroken when one day Roxy does not return from the vet. As a now elderly Tino dies, he thanks Maya for giving him one of his best lives.

Bailey passes away as Tino and reincarnates into his next dog life, this time as a St. Bernard/Australian Shepherd mix puppy sometime in the mid-to-late 2000s, and is taken in by an urban lady named Wendi, who names him Waffles. Unfortunately, Wendi’s neglectful husband Victor refuses to let her keep Waffles inside and, after several years dumps him in an abandoned lot. Afterwards, Waffles sets off in search of a new life. He gradually makes his way to the country area where he spent summers as Bailey and joyfully reunites with his old master Ethan, who is now in his 50s, living a lonely life at his grandparents’ old farm, which he now owns and runs. Not recognizing his dog, Ethan hands him over to the local animal shelter but has a change of heart and reclaims him, naming him Buddy. Buddy, sensing that he has finally found the true purpose of life, reunites Ethan with a widowed Hannah, and they get married.

Buddy convinces Ethan that he is his beloved childhood dog, by performing some tricks and responding to key phrases that were known only to the two of them many years back, such as “boss dog.” Ethan digs up Bailey’s collar, now old and rusty, and places it back on Bailey’s neck, and they resume playing exactly the way they did so long ago. Bailey narrates that life is about having fun, saving others, finding someone to be with, not getting upset over the past or the future, and living for today.

Feel good movie, a bit of a tear jerker, it has its fun moments amongst the more drama, romance and tender moments. Movies about the loving nature of dogs always gets to me and this one was no exception. I believe I had tears at more than a couple of scenes. I loved it. 8 outta 10!

Street Kings is a 2008 American action thriller film directed by David Ayer, and starring Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Naomi Harris & Martha Higareda. The initial screenplay drafts were written by James Ellroy in the late 1990s under the title The Night Watchman.

Keanu plays tough LAPD Vice & undercover cop Tom Ludlow who is a disillusioned man after the death of his wife and is constantly drunk on duty. he meets in a parking lot with Korean gangsters who are looking to buy a machine gun from him and who he also believes have kidnapped two Korean schoolgirls. After a vicious beatdown, the Koreans steal his car. This was planned, however, and he has the cops locate the vehicle via GPS. Upon arrival at their hideout, Ludlow storms in and kills the four gangsters inside, then locates the missing children after the shootout and altering the crime scene such that he killed the gangsters by returning fire. While the other officers in his unit congratulate him, he is confronted by his former partner, Detective Terrence Washington, who no longer approves of the corruption as well as the deception and has gone straight, reporting the problems to Captain James Biggs, of Internal Affairs, who apparently starts an investigation against Ludlow.

Believing that Washington was “snitching” on him, Ludlow follows him to a convenience store to beat him up. However, Washington is executed in the store in an apparent gangland hit albeit with heavy fire by two gangbangers under the pretense of a robbery. Though Ludlow is innocent and the two were working together to fight back, the surveillance video of the shootout shows him to have accidentally shot Washington while trying to protect him with his .38 revolver, which can heavily implicate him in the murder. The DNA of two criminals known as Fremont and Coates is found at the scene, as well as a large amount of cash in Washington’s possession. It is assumed that Washington himself was corrupt, despite his seemingly changed attitude, and that he had been stealing drugs from the department’s evidence room and selling them to Fremont and Coates. Ludlow teams up with Detective Paul “Disco” Diskant, who has been assigned to the case to join him in his personal investigation.

After interrogating a Latino thug named Quicks, the two are led to drug addict/dealer named Winston “Scribble”, which eventually leads them to a house in the hills where they discover the bodies of the real Fremont and Coates buried in a shallow grave. The condition of the bodies makes it apparent that they were killed well before Washington’s murder. Ludlow and Disco, posing as dirty cops who are willing to take over Washington’s supposed activity of stealing and selling drugs, are able to set up a meeting through Winston with two criminals masquerading as Fremont (Cle Shaheed Sloan) and Coates (Common). Freemont and Coates then recognize Ludlow as the cop that was present at the convenience store robbery, prompting Ludlow to question who Freemont and Coates really are, and in turn Disco quickly states he recognizes the two, and he is shot and killed immediately, along with Winston.

Ludlow manages to kill both the men, who turn out to be former crooked cops and escapes to the apartment of his girlfriend Grace Garcia who confronts him. A news report reveals the killers were undercover LASD deputies (Wander later states that the two had been in deep cover for so long that they “lost their fucking minds” and had become corrupt cops). Shortly afterwards, Ludlow is subdued by Detective Cosmo Santos and Detective Dante Demille – two fellow officers from his unit. Talking Ludlow with them, the two admit that they planted Fremont and Coates’ DNA and the drugs at the scene of Washington’s murder. This causes Ludlow to learn that Washington was surrendering their captain, Jack Wander, up to Biggs, as they were the ones that were stealing drugs from the department’s evidence room. The two cops take Ludlow out to the house where the two bodies of the real Fremont and Coates were found earlier, for execution. However, Ludlow manages to kill both of them. He then heads to Washington’s house to take care of their supervisor, Sergeant Mike Clady, who was about to kill Washington’s widow. He captures Clady and places him in the trunk of his car.

Ludlow confronts Wander at his house and apprehends him after a brawl between them. He then discovers that Wander has incriminating evidence against almost the officers in the department, along with the judges, councilmen and politicians; Wander had been concealing his unit’s corruption to cover-up his crimes, and in the process has used the opportunity to become the department’s captain. Wander, asserting that he is Ludlow’s best-friend and mentor, attempts to buy off his silence by bribing him with a large amount of stolen money and incriminating documents – which Ludlo had uncovered from the wall moments ago. However, Ludlow refuses and executes Wander. Soon afterwards, Captain Biggs and Sergeant Green arrive at the scene. Biggs reveals to Ludlow that they used him to bring down Wander and get access to his files by opening his eyes to the real corruption going on within his unit. As he leaves, Biggs tells Ludlow that the department does need him.

Badass Keanu before John Wick was just as deadly with a gun. This is a tough violent movie to watch but entertaining enough to get through. Reeves is awesome in this movie as is Whitaker. 7.5 outta 10!