Hotel for Dogs

Dogs seem to be a big box office attraction these days. On the heels of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Bolt, and just a nose ahead of Marley And Me, Hotel for Dogs is another shaggy family entertainment for the easily led.

Andi and Bruce (Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin) are a couple of strays themselves, orphaned siblings who are currently housed with foster parents Carl and Lewis Scudder (Kevin Dillon and Lisa Kudrow) – their fifth set in three years. It’s not a warm relationship. Would be rockers, the Scudders barely tolerate the children and are clearly just in it for the cheque. And the kids are forced to unusual deviousness to keep their Jack Russell (“Friday”) in kibble, without their foster parents finding out about his existence.

They’re on thin ice, as their kindly social services officer (Don Cheadle) cautions. He’s run out of couples willing to take them.

Happily, Friday leads them to a possible solution, at least in the short term: an abandoned grand hotel on prime urban real estate just blocks from the Scudder’s apartment. He can hang out here without worrying about the city dog-catcher. The only trouble is, it’s already occupied by a Great Dane and a couple of pooches. Andi and Bruce feel compelled to feed them too, and pretty soon they’re taking in every stray in town (they even raid the pound), and re-fitting the building with Bruce’s cutting edge doggie designer living innovations: a self-cleaning fire hydrant loo, various DIY exercise devices and nosh-on-demand.

If anything, director Thor Freudenthal seems more comfortable with the four-legged cast than the bipeds – or maybe they’re just better actors. At any rate, the film’s entertainment value is all wrapped up in the canines, while the kids’ quandaries are just so much connective filler.

Rated an awfully harsh 3.6 out of ten on the imdb, Hotel for Dogs isn’t as bad as all that. I mean, if you’re in the market for a doggie flick to amuse the under under-tens in your life, this will do the trick. My own wretchedly deprived dog-lovers (3 and ten) lapped it up. If, on the other hand, you’re a Don Cheadle fan looking for a follow-up to Hotel Rwanda, well, then I have to tell you you’re likely barking up the wrong tree.

Tom Charity
Tom.charity@lovefilm.com