Megan Leavey

Megan Leavey

Starring Kate Mara, Ramon Rodriguez, Common, Tom Felton
Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

The Story:
Megan Leavey (Kate Mara) is leading a dead-end life: no job, doesn't get along with others, lives with her mother Jackie (Edie Falco) that she constantly fights with, and really has no direction.  She finally decides to join the Marines, and after intense training she becomes a Corporal, and decides to work with the K9 division as a handler for Rex, the most disobedient, wild, hot-tempered dog on the force.

Megan breaks out of her shell and begins to bond with Rex, and after a tour in Iraq she is sent home after an IED goes off nearby.  She spends the rest of her time fighting to get Rex adopted, but comes under the bureaucratic red tape, but she now has someone she's fighting for, and she won't stop until Rex is safely with her.

The Synopsis:
All heroes don't wear capes.  All heroes don't walk on two feet.

The dogs that make up the K-9 division are more than just pets, they're soldiers.  They've been trained to locate IEDs, weapon caches, and other harms that could befall the military.  Yet these are the unsung heroes of war, ones that don't get nearly the recognition they truly deserve because they walk on four paws.  "Megan Leavey" is more than just another war movie, and does more than just exploit the story for lame emotional effect - although you will be weeping by the end of it, if you're like me.

This is more than just a tale of a girl and her dog, but a tale of mutual love, admiration, and protection.  Being an animal lover, I know that there's a deep emotional bond between an owner and their pet that goes far beyond other emotions.  This is easy enough when both owner and pet aren't in harm's way, but once you factor in the prospect of war, this bond is even more powerful than before.  In this true-life story, Megan has struggled with interacting with other humans, and she really has no one she can turn to.  In much the same way, Rex parallels her, as he's the most untrained dog on the team, the most unruly, the most vicious.  Of course the two would take a liking to each other because they're so similar, and its through this mutual relationship that both begin to open up and experience what it truly means to rely on someone else.

Kate Mara dominates the screen as Megan, a steely, tough-as-nails woman who harbors deep-seeded resentment of life, until she meets Rex and he opens her heart to love and gives her something worth fighting for.  After a tour in Iraq, both are involved in an IED explosion, and Megan is sent back home.  She tries to petition Rex for adoption, but he's considered too dangerous in civilian hands.  She refuses to give up and goes all the way to Congress to petition for Rex to be adopted, and it's seeing this natural revelation in Mara - from a troubled youth with no one to fight for to an empowered woman who will stop at nothing to protect the one thing that means the most to her - that's a sight to behold.  She delivers a powerful performance that could've bordered on emotional manipulation, but never reaches that point.  That's largely due to her performance as well as Gabriela Cowperthwaite's pitch-perfect directing that still strings the emotional cord, but not in a manipulative way.

It wasn't just Mara's performance, but Rex's as well.  An animal is much more different than a human, and many directors will tell you there's two types of creatures they hate directing: kids and animals.  Here, Rex portrays emotion from his facial expressions, in a magical way that obviously cannot be taught.  You feel Rex's emotional tie to Megan in every aspect of his being, and it drives the emotion home even harder because of it.

The film, although two hours in length, feels a lot shorter than that due to the excellent pacing.  In typical war-type films, you go through boot camp, meeting new recruits, making new friends, forming new relationships, go off to war, spend a lot of time on the warfield, and so on.  Not so much here, as Cowperthwaite knows the film isn't just about her titular character, but Rex as well.  The first five minutes of the film focuses on Megan's past and then it's off to boot camp, which effectively uses a montage moment to get its point across.  She doesn't make many friends, and there's no real other human interactions she has, except for fellow K9 Corporal Matt Morales (Ramon Rodriguez), Gunnery Sergeant Massey (Common), and veteran dog handler Andrew Dean (Tom Felton).  Everyone gives rousing performances, but its the relationship between Megan and Rex that's the heart of the movie.

The film doesn't rely on cheap emotional moments, but rather lets it flow naturally, and because of this you feel the emotional resonance in a much more personal and profound way than if it was cheaply done.  It's a beautiful tale that tugs at the heartstrings and uplifts your soul, giving you hope in humanity - and animals - again.

The Summary:
In a summer filled with blockbuster explosions and over-the-top antics, it takes a small film like "Megan Leavey" to make you appreciate the true art of cinema, the rousing of your heart and uplifting of your soul. 

The Score: A