Megan Leavey Loved Her Dog Rex.
By Skip Sheffield
Megan Leavey was not just an ordinary dog-lover. She was an
upstate New Yorker who found her purpose as a U.S. Marine Corporal. Rex was not
just any dog. He was a very aggressive and fearsome German Shepherd who became
a bomb-sniffing dog for Marines in Iraq.
“Megan Leavey” is a rah-rah story for dog-lovers and those
who support the Iraq War.
Kate Mara plays Megan, based on a real-life character. The
year is 2001. Megan is floundering aimlessly. Her divorced mother (Edie Falco)
is thinking of marrying a new guy (Will Patton). Megan is the odd person out.
On a whim at a local shopping mall she goes to a local USMC recruiter and says
sign me up.
Like Goldie Hawn in “Private Benjamin” Megan is an unlikely
soldier, but this is not a comedy. A sympathetic Sgt. Gunny Martin (Common)
tries to get her into combat shape, but she soon screws up and is punished by
being assigned to dog kennel cleanup duty. It is there she meets her destiny: a
surly, violent German Shepherd named Rex. Rex is gifted with an extraordinary sense of
smell, so he is trained to be a bomb-sniffing dog in the deserts of Iraq.
On one hand Megan and her dog are heroic and
self-sacrificing. On the other hand it is hard to romanticize a war so
misbegotten, so destructive to both sides with no clear gain either way.
“Megan Leavey” and her dog are true heroes, but what happens when they have to
go back to civilian life? This movie is directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, who
made the compassionate documentary “Black Fish.” Its heart is in the right
place but I can’t help but feel melancholy about such a pointless, unwinnable
war.
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