Leslie Felperin 

Down Dog review – witless willy-waving comedy

Jason Durr’s sex-toy selling exec is given months to live and change his ways in this raggedy mess
  
  

Down Dog
Let's just get this over with … Down Dog Photograph: pr

One of the three credited writers for Down Dog is Men Behaving Badly creator Simon Nye, and there’s an obvious overlap between that show and this only mildly amusing feature about a hard-partying sex-toy executive (Jason Durr) who changes his ways when he’s tricked into thinking he has a terminal disease. It may be an “original” plot, but it feels like a remake, perhaps of some lost German or Dutch comedy that was a lot funnier, dirtier and crueller than this raggedy, eventually soppy mess. There is one energetic, well-timed comic highlight, when our hero and his slimy boss (Nick Moran) chuck vibrators and dildos at each other in anger, and it’s sort of a cute idea that all the major women in the lead’s life are played by the same actor (the very likable Orla O’Rourke). But ultimately, the premise is absurd and repellent, and Durr’s gurning performance doesn’t help.

 

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