Oliver & Company (DVD)

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The first Disney movie with attitude.

That's the tagline for this 1988 animated feature, which draws its inspiration from Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. But instead of setting it in Dickens' Victorian London, writers Jim Cox, Tim Disney, and James Mangold plunked this one down in the middle of New York City in the Eighties. A soundtrack that includes songs by Huey Lewis, Billy Joel, and Bette Midler date "Oliver & Company" just as much as Dickens' stovepipe hats. But "Oliver & Company" never got a fair shake from the critics, and that's more a result of years of high expectations than anything else. When a studio has a golden age of animation that spans more than a decade, and that's followed by a decade of disappointment, it programs critics. And the retrospective view of "Oliver & Company" isn't any brighter, since it had the misfortune of being followed by the filim that many believe started another Disney golden age--"The Little Mermaid" (1989). So it's easy to see where this movie could be shortchanged.

Yes, there's something crude about the artwork and production design, but give the filmmakers a break--they were trying to transfer the squalor of Dickens' Hard Times to an equally gritty New York City. While I may be alone in saying so, I think that the animation, the characters, the story, and certainly the music in "Oliver & Company" are all better-than-average. With critics accustomed to seeing gold from Disney, that apparently makes it a failure. Even Disney may not appreciate it enough, since no Blu-ray was issued alongside this 20th Anniversary DVD. But in my book "Oliver & Company" is a solid 7 out of 10, with a great mix of tuneful songs, fun animal characters, poignant moments involving a little girl, and elements of peril with a pair of Dobermans and a crime boss.

Singer Billy Joel gives voice to Dodger, the cocky Tramp-like mongrel who's the main mutt in an animal thieving operation run by a bum named Fagin (Dom DeLuise). The "gang" includes a feisty Chihuahua named Tito (Cheech Marin), an elegantly mannered bulldog (Roscoe Lee Brown), and a not-so-bright Great Dane named Einstein (Richard Mulligan), with Bette Midler handling the voiceover for a poodle and Joey Lawrence giving voice to the title character, Oliver. In this film, Oliver is a kitten that was abandoned in a box on the mean streets, left to his own and struggling until Dodger comes to his rescue and makes him one of the gang. But during one of the gang's capers Oliver is separated from the group and meets a young girl named Jenny (Natalie Gregory), who takes in the cat and makes it her pet. Jenny is a girl of privilege and wealth, and so it's not long before Dodger and the gang "rescue" her and Fagin gets involved in a plan that will rob that rich family blind.