Dancer and the Dame (2015) Reviews

• Set in Monroe, Louisiana, a demoted cop has to take care of his police dog and solve a crime.

  TxMike2015-07-03

  OK, up-front, this is a mostly cheesy movie, found it on Netflix streaming movies. Most of the acting is barely passable and scenes are not shot very interestingly. Action scenes are not up to modern blockbuster movie standards. It was probably made on a very small budget. But Billy Gardell, who plays the lead role, is so good that he salvages something out of this story. He of course has been a regular on the TV series "Mike and Molly", which I don't watch, and seems to be a very underrated actor. Here he is Officer Dancer, and as the movie opens he is relegated to clerical duty in the office. But he also is seeing a police psychologist to see when he will be ready to return to normal duties. Part of his rehab is to put him with a veteran police dog named Princess, thus the title "Dancer and the Dame." My wife and I watched it, mostly because it takes place in and is filmed in Monroe and West Monroe, Louisiana. It was fun to recognize areas that we are familiar with. But curiously between several scene changes were quick shots of New Orleans and the Mississippi River, over 4 hours and almost 300 miles away from Monroe. I suppose the film editor used stock footage spliced in just for the "look". So the story involves breaking a crime ring where one-dollar bills are brought into a warehouse, blank on one side, with a USB drive of data to print the image of $100 dollars on the blank side. All 3 million of them. If we assume a person can manually print 10 bills per hour, it would 15 people about 10 years to print all of them. But maybe they had an automated machine? Three million pieces of paper take a long time to handle.

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• One bad word. Bleeped out.

  wilsonswak2019-04-01

  One part does have a bleeped out word from a tv show they are watching. That was unnecessary to add in the script. Other than that it was good.

• Poor attempt at a K-9 rip off - how bloody rude !!!!!

  hcjv62015-08-24

  OK so first off K-9 is my all-time favourite film and the reason I find myself living with numerous of these ridiculous creatures aka German Shepherds.......so obviously im going to be a lil biased........however from the moment I saw the trailer I just knew this 'film/waste of a chunk of my life' was never gonna be Oscar worthy but had to give it a go as there was a Shep in it.........never a good reason to watch a film granted but still......I gave it a go....... BOY did I wish I hadn't as far as being an avid film watcher......but I do have to give considerable kudos to the adorable Princess who is the only character worthy or any credit.......perhaps that's because she doesn't actually say anything, she just does her cute and cheeky German Shepherd thing.......as they do ! Poor plot, terrible acting, Billy is no Dooley and bless Princess but she's no Jerry-Lee........even in the 'bar scene'........seriously why......it's such an obvious rip as is the 'handcuffed to the car' one and the 'get in the car challenge' and the 'sniff in the warehouse' etc etc.......gee's Hollywood/ripoffwood c'mon......why not name it 'K-9 Rip-off' tsk tsk !!!! If you would like to watch this film anyway I suggest simply putting it on in the background of a knitting fest, starting to pay attention at aprox 30 mins and then turn away at any scene that doesn't involve Princess !!! It's a shame really that the poor dog was subjected to appearing in such trash, I hope for her sake she has moved on to better things !!!!!!

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• Chee-e-e-e-e-esy-y-y-y-y-y (spoiler)

  robertka12015-07-26

  I have had German Shepherds for over 50 years and I love to watch any movie involving German Shepherds. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these movies are corny, cheesy and all the related adjectives you can think of: but, I like to give all productions a chance. Well, guess what! Dancer and the Dame joins that group! My wife fell asleep within 15 minutes. Every actor and actress tries very hard but fails to have a convincing part. They all seem like they are repeating without any feeling what they have memorized, just like robots. Sometimes we watch "Mike and Molly" and we thought that Billy Gardell was possibly going to bring some degree of comedy to this supposedly action movie. Big letdown! Sadly, I believe the only actor who got me to sit up and pay attention was the dog. When compared to the others, he was natural, interesting, awake and not looked bored or suffering through a flat and unconvincing dialogue. There were so many ridiculous situations that I lost track. Here are some: Dancer reportedly gained 89 lbs; yet, no picture of him before that gain, even Photoshopped. He goes to meet the therapist at her house, where do you ever see that??? If you know dogs, you can see that 2 dogs were used because they had different faces and the colors were close but not the same. Chief Murray ends his speech with "bla-bla-bla" and there is barely any reaction from the audience. I gave a 3-star rating solely for Princess, the dog, for being the only real actor who kept the plot together.

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