Last of the Dogmen is a 1995 film about the search for and discovery of an unknown band of Native Americans. The film stars Tom Berenger and Barbara Hershey with supporting roles by Parley Baer, Kurtwood Smith, Steve Reevis, Andrew Miller, Eugene Blackbear and Gregory Scott Cummins. Last of the Dogmen is written and directed by Tab Murphy.
The setting for the story is northwest Montana, near the Idaho and Canadian borders; but it was actually shot on locations in Cuernavaca, Mexico; Banff, Alberta, Canada; Canmore, Alberta, Canada; Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada; Stoney Reservation, Alberta, Canada; and Yoho National Park, British Columbia.
Plot Summary
Tom Berenger plays a distraught but skillful bounty hunter Lewis Gates, who pursues three armed escaped convicts into Montana's Oxbow Quadrangle, followed by his faithful companion called Zip, an Australian cattle dog. All Gates finds is a few scraps of cloth, some blood, and an old-fashioned Indian arrow. He takes the arrow to anthropologist Lillian Sloane (Barbara Hershey) who identifies it as a replica of the arrows used by Cheyenne Dog Soldiers. Gates doesn't think it's a replica and, after some library research, develops a long list of people who have disappeared into the Oxbow and a story of a "wild child" captured in the woods in the early 20th century. Now he's convinced that the fugitives were killed by a tribe of Dog Soldiers, a hearty band of native Americans who had somehow escaped the 1864 Sand Creek massacre and survived for more than a hundred years secluded in the Montana Wilderness.
Gates convinces Sloane to join him in a search for the band. Just as they are preparing to return empty handed; the Dogmen surprise them, take them prisoner, and lead them back to the band's encampment, where they must convince the reclusive band's elders that they intend no harm. An immediate "salvation of one vs. salvation of many" crisis situation gives them the opportunity to prove their honorable intentions but also threatens to attract the attention of the outside world.
Gates and Sloane soon realize they must protect the secret of the band's existence from the outside world, beginning with the local Sheriff Deegan (Kurtwood Smith) who is now leading a posse into the Oxbow in search of both the fugitive convicts and Gates.
Cast
Alternate Versions
The American theatrical and home video releases of this film included narration by Wilford Brimley, which is absent from the UK version. The DVD allows the viewer to choose.
Rights issues
This is one of the few Carolco productions whose rights have been retained by its original distributor (in this case, Savoy Pictures). HBO currently distributes this for DVD.
External links
