Dog Tags (DVD)

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Writer/Director Damion Dietz lists "Midnight Cowboy" as an inspiration for his 2008 drama "Dog Tags." If this gay romance wannabe had even approached that Dustin Hoffman/Jon Voight Oscar winner, it would have been a major miracle. Dietz forgets a few rules of good storytelling: every character can´t be an utter buffoon, playing with time works provided the audience is given enough information and being confused about life does not make a person fall into bed with a member of the same sex.

Upon graduating from boot camp, Nate (Paul Preiss) decides to surprise his fiancée by coming home a day early. He finds her in bed with another man, sending him on a cross-city trip to find his birth father with Andy (Bart Fletcher), a gay man with issues all his own. With Andy´s baby son Travis in tow, the three make plans to see the country. But is an AWOL Nate, distraught over his father, fiancée and mother, the best traveling companion for a man longing to relive a romance he had with another Marine?

"Dog Tags" wants to be a couple different movies rolled into one. First, it has a mind to delve into the relationships between parents and their children. Nate´s quest to find his father, coupled with an overbearing mother and Andy´s own mother issues (lest we forget to mention his running away from son Travis) would have been enough of a plot all on its own. But then Dietz felt the need to include a pseudo-gay romance between the two which never gets off the ground, thanks to non-committal from Nate and the memory of a failed relationship from Andy. Wait, we´re not done. There is even an inkling of the story playing with the idea of time which, mercifully, isn´t given any space to breathe or gain traction. If it did, the wheels might have completely come off the drama as opposed to mostly coming off.

All those plots rolled into under 90 minutes (official runtime is 1:29:57 with opening and closing credits). It´s a pity, actually, since Fletcher attracts attention for some undeterminable reason. Attractive in a boyish way, he exudes a very basic need to be loved or, at the very least, to be held. The audience can easily sympathize with that longing, as it can understand Nate wanting to know his father. This part of the story works, even if the acting job by Preiss leaves a bit to be desired.

The writing fails every character and whatever Dietz is actually trying to do. From the very beginning, every person on screen appears to have the IQ of a mushroom. For example, Nate is offered a ride by a man in an expensive car. They go back to his house…for what purpose? Nate doesn´t exactly figure it out until Andy is sitting next to him and they´re being asked to take their clothes off. Alright, so maybe Nate isn´t the quickest on the uptake. Certainly Andy must be smarter.

Um, no. Here´s a person who locks his infant son in a car with the moon roof open. He was going to go to the liquor store for baby food. Maybe Andy isn´t the best father in the world. Maybe Nate´s mother and fiancée have some intelligence between them? Not likely, especially when they fight over shifts at the bar instead of worrying about Nate.

But pay no attention to the actual story, Dietz seems to want to say. Look at Preiss and Fletcher. They´re both reasonably attractive and there is some semblance of a romance story, with the promise of sex and nudity…but there isn´t. At least nothing from the two people the audience would presumably want to see. All that makes "Dog Tags" mind-numbingly frustrating. It could have been a heart-tugging story with characters we wanted to see succeed, to come together and be happy. Dietz throws lip service to the idea of breaking away from parents and outside the norm-that´s the moral, actually, to listen to yourself and not other people-though its too little at the end.