Sheepdog: A Dramatic Reminder that War is Hell
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
Sheepdog is a contemporary redemption story about a U.S. armed forces veteran whose life has spun out of control. It’s an everyman tale set in small-town, blue-collar western Massachusetts, where the paper mill is closing and the future looks generally grim.
Calvin (Steven Grayhm, who also wrote and directed) is a local veteran suffering from some form of severe PTS. His military service has cost him his mental health, his marriage, his ability to hold down a job and a whole lot more, all of which is revealed as at the story unfolds.
Calvin is about to cross paths with Whitney (Vondie Curtis Hall), an aging Vietnam veteran being released after 30 years in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth. Whitney is making his way to Calvin’s town in Massachusetts, because that’s where his daughter lives — and that daughter is Calvin’s ex-wife (Lilli Cooper).
Despite a complicated history and initial estrangement, the two men — one old, one young — slowly form a bond based on military service and the shared experience of becoming a stranger in a strange land upon returning to civilian life.
Whitney and his band of brothers were spat upon and rejected when they returned from Vietnam; Calvin and his best friend Darryl (Matt Dallas) saw terrible things in one futile American Middle East/Afghanistan debacle or another and came home broken in mind and body with no help to be had. It’s a landscape of human wreckage.
After acting out in public once too often, Calvin is court-ordered into therapy. He begins the long road back to some semblance of health with the help of a fledgling therapist (Virginia Madsen.) But salvation can also be found in the brotherhood of men who share his experiences. Whitney is there to help talk him off the ledge.
Sheepdog is an intense drama, a tad overlong and amateurish in parts, but definitely an affecting crowd-pleaser with more than a dozen film fest “best movie” and “audience choice” awards to prove it. The movie has a Canadian connection in writer-director-star Grayhm and in at least one song (Charly Lowry’s “Stay”) in an excellent soundtrack.
And the film has a purpose. One does not review good intentions, but Sheepdog has a backstory that can’t be ignored. The film is a 14-year labour of love for Steven Grayhm, who interviewed dozens of veterans and felt compelled to shed light on their current plight in the U.S. with this movie.
Homelessness and suicide mark the ranks of former military personnel for whom a return to “normal” civilian life is nigh unto impossible.
Sheepdog will play differently to Canadian audiences, obviously, as the willing suspension of disbelief involves a certain emotional investment in the military-industrial complex and the gene for that is often missing north of the 49th parallel.
However, anyone can see the terrible irony in the release of Sheepdog at this particular moment, given that the U.S. has a president who refers to veterans as “losers” and “suckers” and who permitted DOGE to decimate the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Why the very same people most likely to end up as cannon fodder voted for that man remains a mystery.
Sheepdog. Written and directed by Steven Grayhm. Starring Steven Grayhm, Vondie Curtis Hall, Virginia Madsen, and Lilli Cooper. In theatres January 16.