Dog Eat Dog is a 2016 darkly comedic crime thriller directed by Paul Schrader and based off the novel of the same name by Edward Bunker.
Ex-convicts Troy (Nicolas Cage), Mad Dog (Willem Dafoe), and Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook) are hired by Cleveland mob bosses El Grecco (Schrader) and Chepe (Reynaldo Gallegas) to kidnap the infant son of Mike Brennan (Louis Perez), a wealthy man who owes money to Chepe. Unfortunately, the kidnapping attempt goes horribly wrong, and spirals increasingly further out of control.
List of tropes applying to this film:
- Affably Evil:
- Troy is a polite and mostly well-mannered guy, at least in comparison to his friends, and generally tries to avoid unnecessary killing during their jobs. He's still a remorseless criminal who shoots a woman in cold blood for annoying him.
- Mad Dog. He's a genuinely friendly guy who's more pitiful than anything, but he's still an Ax-Crazy junkie who murdered his family in a fit of rage.
- Anyone Can Die: Mad Dog and Diesel die, and it's heavily implied that Troy is murdered by two cops as well.
- Asshole Victim:
- Subverted in the beginning. Mad Dog's ex-wife Sheila and his daughter Hannah are certainly annoying, but that doesn't justify him murdering them in cold blood.
- Played straight with Brennan, who's shown to be a massive asshole and is brutally killed by Mad Dog.
- The Atoner: By the end, Mad Dog genuinely wants to change for the better. Diesel puts a bullet in his head before it happens.
- Ax-Crazy: Mad Dog. He has no impulse control, he's extremely trigger-happy, and he's prone to extreme bursts of violence.
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Brennan is killed when Mad Dog shoots him in the face with a shotgun.
- Mad Dog himself is killed when an irate Diesel snaps and shoots him in the head.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: It's heavily implied that Troy is lynched by a pair of corrupt police officers as punishment for the cops Diesel murdered.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Diesel shoots Mad Dog in the head because he finds him annoying.
- Downer Ending: The protagonists royally screw up the job and die, killing several innocent people along the way.
- Gainax Ending: The last fifteen minutes of the film are weird. After two cops prepare to lynch Troy, it cuts to a dream-like sequence where he takes a preacher and his wife hostage, only for them all to be gunned down by overzealous police officers, all the while Troy speaks in a Humphrey Bogart impression. The film then ends with a shot of the road as the cop car drags Troy's body out of sight, as he narrates and cryptically notes that he's realized what he finally wanted. It's heavily implied to be his Dying Dream.
- The Hero Dies: It's heavily implied that Troy is murdered by a pair of corrupt cops.
- Villain Protagonist: Troy, Mad Do, and Diesel are all remorseless criminals who think nothing of committing murder at the drop of a hat.
