Lawn Dogs (1997)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

John Duigan

Writer:

Naomi Wallace (written by)

Release Date:

15 May 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Innocence is a dangerous friend

Plot:

Newly arrived in an up-market housing development, quiet ten-year-old Devon doesn't quite fit in. Ignoring the urgings of her social-climbing father...

Plot Keywords:

Trailer Home | Ribbon | Selling Cookies | Golf Club | Number 7

Awards:

7 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Mischa Barton	...	Devon Stockard
Sam Rockwell	...	Trent
Christopher McDonald	...	Morton Stockard
Kathleen Quinlan	...	Clare Stockard
Miles Meehan	...	Billy
Bruce McGill	...	Nash
David Barry Gray	...	Brett
Eric Mabius	...	Sean Torrance
Angie Harmon	...	Pamela 'Pam' Gregory
José Orlando Araque	...	Salvador the Mailman
Beth Grant	...	Trent's Mother
Tom Aldredge	...	Trent's Father
Odin the Dog	...	Tracker
Tafeki the Dog	...	Tracker

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality/nudity, violence and language.

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:MA | Germany:12 | Portugal:M/16 (video premiere) | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R | Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Jefferson County, Kentucky, USA

Company:

Rank Organisation, The

Trivia:

The Rank Organization's last film and so the final time their famous gong man is to be seen introducing a movie.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Devon refers to Baba Yaga as "he" several times and describes the character as having chicken legs, however, in Russian faerie tales/folklore Baba Yaga is an old woman and gets around by flying in a mortar and pestle, it is her house that runs about on chicken legs.

Quotes:

Devon: I don't like children. They smell like TV.

Movie Connections:

References Sudden Impact (1983)

Soundtrack:

A Thousand Miles From Nowhere

Ok movie, but VERY misrepresented on the packaging

From the picture on the cover (see the picture on the main details page!) and reading the back of the video jacket for this movie, I expected this to be a film about suburban wives sleeping with the hired help. Nope. It's a movie about a slightly sick [in the mental and physical sense] young girl [about 10 or 11 years old?] who befriends one of the guys hired to mow the lawns in her gated community. While the guy is reluctant at first, the friendship that forms between them is actually fun to watch. That's what makes the movie interesting. But while the end has to do with the class system talked about on the video jacket, this is a story about the girl and her "lawn dog" friend, with the parents and their repressive lifestyle being almost incidental to the story until the end. This is an interesting movie to watch, but I wish the people who write the blurbs on the video jackets would actually WATCH the movies once in a while.