Gotta give it to the marketing campaign behind this film. FanboyNation.com hailed it as “A rare perfect film.” Fox 13 Utah hailed it as “One of the best films of the year,” and short clips on social media got me excited to view it, paying the six clams for the rental. I’m not sure what films FanboyNation considers perfect, but the bar must be pretty low. And we’re less than two months into the year if we’re discussing the wide release of the movie, which was made in 2024 and received limited release in December 2025. Sheepdog gets so much right -the focus on healing rather than showing the traumatic events, for instance -that the implausible events that drive the plot become comedic B-movie moments in their predictability. It’s almost as if the film, with its somber subject of post-war veteran trauma, was daring me to laugh. I took the dare and guffawed at key scenes. Not a total loss, as I learned a few things. Alice works nights when estranged Dad is looking for her, but appears a short time later during the day to unexpectedly run into estranged ex-husband Cole. Stopping anti-psychotics and opioids cold turkey has no consequences, and the best way to see your child for the first time in an undetermined but significant amount of time is to go trick or treating dressed in a tutu. It’s maddening because Grayhm and the rest of the cast deliver emotionally, and Grayhm captures every nuance with his direction. He also wrote the screenplay, so I guess two out of three ain’t bad. No, fuck that. Nothing can overcome the contrived laziness that connects the scenes, all of which are brilliant on their own, but the actor’s chemistry–as intense and beautiful as it is–can’t overcome the connective tissue. It’s a film made for social media clips where the acting and directing stand out, where the many monologues are delivered without that pesky continuity. I’m going to watch another film in which a sheepdog is mentioned. The Shaggy DA. It has a more plausible story going for it. (2026) — Spike Steffenhagen
This movie is not currently in theaters.