david-sarkies This is a typical Hollywood cop movie, you can tell this when at the beginning a car is shot up with a machine gun and it blows up. I do really doubt that a simple machine gun will cause a car to blow up. I think that it will more likely riddle it with holes and leak petrol everywhere.K-9 is about a cop with a attitude. He is on the trail of a drug lord who is smuggling drugs through Los Angeles. This is the typical cop movie where the drug smuggler is an ultra-rich millionaire and also very untouchable, and even an idol to the community. Dooley (James Belushi) is simply a cop with a very bad attitude and simply has a problem with the human race. This is why I find it strange that he has a girlfriend, and in reality downright unrealistic. At the beginning of the movie he is having a row with her, and honestly he doesn't even seem to want to make it work out, and when things start to fall apart, it is not his fault. Seriously, Dooley really needs to open his eyes and look at himself.He doesn't want to work with a human, but realises that he needs a dog to find some drugs in a warehouse, so he helps out a friend by catching two gunmen, after ramming a very expensive car which he hired using somebody else's credit card, through the front of a house. And the car rental guy lets him get away with it – he was asking to loose that car. Anyway, He gets the dog and the dog turns out to be a lemon. He searches the warehouse only to find a guy smoking a joint, while Dooley is becoming the laughing stock of the warehouse workers.Now the dog is good, a little too human in parts, but good. I love German Shepherds, they are just the most beautiful dogs, so that is why I liked this movie. If it wasn't for the dog then there wouldn't have been much to make this movie. The dog has its quirks, which makes it interesting. If the dog didn't have a mind of its own, nor acted like a human, then this movie would have been nothing. It is only that the dog with an attitude gets stuck with a cop with an attitude that this movie rises above garbage.

Spikeopath Pursuing crime boss Lyman, maverick cop Dooley is tipped over the edge when a false lead ends up with an attempt on his life. Determined to finally get his man, Dooley enlists the help of a police dog called Jerry Lee {The Killer} to hopefully sniff out the drugs that he knows Lyman is involved in. Trouble is is that Dooley has no idea how to treat a dog and Jerry Lee is more of a maverick cop than he is!Given its low rating, it's hard to know what sort of film the critics and general movie watching public were expecting with this one. Since a buddy buddy cop movie staring James Belushi and a German Shepherd Dog doesn't say anything other than the film we actually get. By the time of K-9s release it was evident what sort of film would Belushi's staple money earner, the kind that called for him to play the cocky quipper with a glint in his eye. Belushi would try to abandon his buffoonery roles post Curly Sue {who could blame him after that mess really?}, and attempt to be a more dramatic, action type actor. It wouldn't work, his excellent performances in Oliver Stone's Salvador and The Principal {the latter also criminally undervalued} were long behind him. So you hear the name James Belushi in relation to films and you by and large think larking about action comedy. Coming a year after Red Heat {it looks like Belushi is wearing the same suit from that film in this one!}, K-9 delivers exactly what it screamed out it would from the off.Technically the film has very few things to recommend, but as a family friendly action comedy it has much to laud. The interplay between man and dog is great fun, they are both members of the animal kingdom, they both got needs and they are both great cops. Yes we are never in any doubt that after a troubled start, this pairing are going to become firm friends, and that ultimately, by hook, crook and paw, they will get the job done. Belushi has a nice line in facial comedy and he also never comes up short in delivering quips with panache, and a confidence that often belies the trouble his characters are often in. The dog too is hilarious {hats of to animal handler Robert Zides}. Courtesy of writers Steven Siegel & Scott Myers, this is a dog that eats chili and wants to vie with Dooley for Tracy's affections {Mel Harris as Dooley's frustrated girlfriend}. It makes for a number of funny set-ups that both man and beast revel at being involved in. Kevin Tighe as villain Lyman is a touch under written, and the obligatory emotional heart tugger moment now looks like over egging the formula pudding. But this is harmless witty fun that gets in and does its job without proclaiming to be anything other than what it is. 7/10

John Hodgson It's been a number years since I watched this movie, and like so many movies from this era, I had anticipated that my fond memories of Jerry Lee and Dooley would be clouded by the rose coloured spectacles of nostalgia, however, I was wrong.Parts of this movie, like so many others of it's ilk, are locked in that eighties timeframe, yet, I enjoyed this movie more than when I first saw it. Yes, it has its faults; it is predictable and at times, over simplistic, yet it held my attention from beginning to end.This is one of those movies that exceeds the sum of it's parts. Although out shadowed by Turner and Hooch, this movie delivers so much more in the way of laughs and down to earth fun. Unlike Tom Hanks's character; Dooley is not perfect; his faults are many yet he is a likable character. There's no blossoming love interest, he's already happily married, and he really isn't searching for anything within his life. Dooley is a man who knows where his life is, and although this may not be where he wants to be, he is happy.And Jerry Lee? Well anyone familiar with German Shepherd dogs will identify with this movie. Whether intentional or not, this movie captures the fun loving and at times mischievous persona of these dogs, which is in stark contrast to the role often found for German Shepherds on TV and in the movies. This is without a doubt my favourite doggy caper ever. It's not a perfect movie and most people will see it's many faults yet it is fun. And far from the usual scruffy mutt and lovable kid movie it's a kids movie made for adults and this is why it works. Some will love it, others will hate it, yet if you ignore the dated looks and predictability I'm sure enjoyment will ensue; therefore, just sit back with some friends and enjoy what is still a great movie.

JoeytheBrit One of a number of films from the late-eighties that created a short-lived sub-genre of the buddy movie by making one of the buddies a mutt, K-9 stars John Belushi's kid brother as the wisecracking maverick cop who gets saddled with an eccentric police Alsatian called Jerry Lee while trying to bring down a drugs baron.Of course, the beauty of creating a sub-genre like this is that you don't actually have to change your storyline: the dog could be a professional criminal cuffed to the cop, a novelist carrying out research, or a dental equipment salesman who has unwittingly scuppered the cop's arrest. The changes required to the plot are minor and all can be applied to the same template. The big advantage upon which this film plays is that dogs are cute while most humans are not… Given that it covers no new ground, K-9 is reasonably entertaining without containing the requisite number of laughs to be considered a major success. The relationship between Belushi and his charge follows the predictable route from mutual belligerence to guarded respect to genuine affection, and includes all the situations you would expect from the given scenario: Dog refuses to obey instructions, dog disrupts man's love life, dog poops in man's house, etc. It's all carried out with a breezy sense of fun that is matched by Belushi's performance. Nobody is taking anything seriously here, and this is evident on the screen and probably makes K-9 a better film than it might otherwise have been. Belushi makes a likable hero – he looked for a while as if he would step out from his brother's shadow and become a major film comedian but his career has dipped since the eighties. An even worse fate awaited his canine co-star, a real police dog, who died from gunshot wounds while apprehending a suspect a couple of years after the movie was shot.Director Rod Daniel manages to blend the action and comedy sequences quite well while remaining strictly within parameters set by those who've gone before him and, although he displays a reasonably assured touch here, his workmanlike approach might explain why his film career has also gone nowhere. All in all, K-9 largely manages to avoid the excessive sentimentality that normally plagues this kind of man-and-beast story, and is pleasing enough entertainment for those who don't set the bar too high.