TRAVELS WITH LULU

I once had a sweet Golden Lab named Maggie. Or more accurately, my family had the dog, although whenever I was home from college or jobs beyond college, Maggie ignored everyone else to shadow me from morning to night.

She even slept with her head on the pillow next to mine. I often woke up with her staring at me. As she got older, loud noises bothered her. And the Fourth of July might well have been Armageddon. The annual fireworks in the park next to our house sent her under the kitchen table, shivering with fear.

In those moments when I held her close and could feel her heart beating wildly, I knew she had never loved me more.

I flashed back to those moments watching “Dog,” the new only-in-theaters feature film from “Magic Mike” star Channing Tatum, his first movie role in five years.

The story is as basic as they come. Jackson Briggs, a veteran of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, is battling back from a serious brain injury, all the while trying to convince his commanding officer that he’s ready to serve again, despite occasional seizures.

But the call, when it comes, isn’t about that. Instead, Briggs is asked to transport the K-9 named Lulu, herself an Army Ranger, and his Ranger friend’s fur buddy, to the friend’s funeral in Nogales, Arizona.

Briggs, of course, isn’t a fan of dogs, or pets of any kind. And now must make the 15-hundred-mile drive from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Tacoma, Washington, south along the entire Pacific Coast to the border with Mexico. And with a dog that has her own combat-related triggers.

Lulu is a Belgian Malinois, and it took three of the breed to perform the required stunts. However, the film is seamless in that regard.

From the start, Lulu is a handful—distrustful, destructive, seemingly uncontrollable. But Tatum, as Briggs, is up to the challenge, and in ways that really test his resolve to get the dog to the damn funeral.

There are detours during the trek that suggest why Oregon prides itself on its weirdness, and why when in California, it pays to remove valuables from your vehicle.

But the truth of the matter, and this really shouldn’t be a surprise, man and dog discover a bond that'll have you tearing up by story’s end.

“Dog” doesn’t break new ground. But Tatum is charming and Lulu even more so. And if nothing else, the story is a fitting tribute to the courageous servicemen and women who have found that war may be hell, but peacetime is no picnic either.