
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, October 14, 1995                   TAG: 9510170113
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'DOGMEN' IS 2 HOURS OF CLICHES

As if "Last of the Dogmen" weren't irritating enough for its unoriginality and warm embrace of several film cliches, it is narrated by some unnamed person in Wilford Brimley style.

He says stuff like, "This is a Western story, so it begins the way all Western stories ought to - with outlaws."

And, "By instinct, he knew her. And she knew him the same way."

So, who let Robert James Waller onto the set?

And how did this script ever see the light of day in the first place?

These are the only mysteries that "Last of the Dogmen" can lay claim to. Everything else about this movie is an absolute, 100 percent dyed-in-the-wool cliche. It's quite an achievement, if you think about it: two hours of film without one surprise or inventive moment. You'd almost think that someone set out to create an utterly secure filmic environment - a cinematic sedative, if you will.

Our two unlucky hosts for this experience are Tom Berenger as a last-of-the-bounty-hunters type named Lewis Gates, and Barbara Hershey as a last-of-the-career-gals type named Lillian Sloan. While tracking escaped convicts, Gates sees what he believes to be several Indians in a remote area of the Montana wilderness. He also finds an arrow, which he eventually brings to Sloan, who is a professor of Native American studies.

Gates makes a case for going back into them thar hills to test his theory that there is an original Cheyenne tribe out there. After a token battle, Sloan decides to go with him. To provide an academic perspective. And sexual tension. Sort of.

It's real subtle, though. She warns him that she likes "to stroll around naked in the morning." It's kind of like figuring out that your parents had to have sex in order to produce you: You just sort of don't want to know about it.

Gates and Sloan eventually do find some real Cheyenne Indians and get to know them well enough to want to save them from civilization. If you've seen "Nell," you sort of get the picture.

But the real folks caught in a time warp here aren't the lost tribe: they're Gates and Sloan. And Tab Murphy, who wrote and directed it. Berenger tries to give Gates' hard-drinking, heartbroken cowboyishness something extra, but just ends up squinting and whining more than usual. Hershey tries hard, too. But Murphy wrote her as a woman married to her job, and there isn't just a whole lot else to work with.

Let's hope "Last of the Dogmen" is the last of the films that attempts to deify the Native American at all costs - especially logic, good taste and intelligence.

by CNB