User reviews

That sometimes has to be a bad dog - well no pun intended. Aaron really is the ... (Eck)hart of the movie (I probably should have used that as summary headline). That said, he has quite the supporting cast - you can look up the names yourself. If you have a heart (not gonna use his name again ... for this review at least) for pets/animals, you will find a lot to like here. Unless you are a cat person I reckon, but that is a different topic to discuss.

The story is good and the suspense is high - I would say that the story is predictable overall, but you will still find yourself on the edge of your seat ... waiting for what happens next ... knowing or not knowing almost does not matter. I assume most will invest themselves in this - especially if they know what the movie is about and what they are about to get ... can justice be served? Being right morally and in the eyes of the justice system may be two pair of shoes ... if that does not give you paws to think about ... (I had to, sorry not sorry)

This movie only starts to become really suspenseful, gripping and action packed after some 45 minutes, so beware the real rewarding suspenseful part of this movie is only firing up during the second half.

But this movie has enough to offer in the first 45 minutes as well, because everything (direction, photography, editing, soundscore, dialogues, characters) are of SOLID quality. I really appreciate it so much to see a movie like this, made with an abundance of craftmanship.

The first 45 minutes are firstmost a subtle character portrait of an introvert, aggressive cop (terrific role by Aaron Eckhart), struggling with his inner demons. When his dog gets shot he desperately wants to find the dogkiller, but while investigating he stumbles upon the most dangerous drug cartel.

Slow start, bleak and supsenseful final. Terrific acting performance by Aaron Eckart. Solid direction.

Probably best suited for an arthouse movie audience, because this is defnitely NOT a fastpaced gungho action picture, but much more a slowburning, psychological character portrait of a cop, struggling with his inner demons.

Had I heard about this 2023 crime thriller titled "Muzzle" from writers Carlyle Eubank and John Stalberg Jr. Prior to sitting down to watch it? No. But I figured that the movie might be worth a shot, since it had Aaron Eckhart and Stephen Lang on the cast list. Plus, the fact that it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, also helped to make me sit down to watch it.

The storyline in "Muzzle", as written by Carlyle Eubank and John Stalberg Jr., was a pretty straightforward one. Ultimately then the movie came off as being a rather generic crime thriller. So the writers didn't really manage to accomplish a whole lot with the script and storyline. A shame, because there certainly was potential for something here.

The acting performances in "Muzzle" were good, and Aaron Eckhart does carry the movie well enough in the leading role. It wasn't a movie that boasted a whole lot of familiar faces on the cast list. In fact, I was only familiar with Aaron Eckhart and Stephen Lang.

For a crime thriller, then the movie was not particularly interesting or thrilling. And that made for a somewhat bland and mediocre viewing experience. And while I did manage to finish the movie, I can honestly say that I was only mildly entertained. This is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

My rating of director John Stalberg Jr.'s 2023 crime thriller "Muzzle" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.

I have never reviewed a film before, but felt compelled to do so after giving this a watch.

I saw the previews and was excited to sit down and watch...unfortunately, the best part of the movie was the trailer. Eckhart did his best with what he had to work with, but it there were so many forced scenes it was distracting. Beyond that, while the story is pretty linear, scene to scene seems to leave out a lot of information in regards to character development and development of friendships when seemingly there was none.

This is definitely a watch it once film. In the hands of a capable director and producer this could have been excellent.

The film story is pretty good apart from a pretty odd and under-sketched villain, but what is distracting is the poor quality of the dialogue.

It's a combination of badly recorded dialogue, likely with a lack of options, and amateur use of dialogue cleanup software.

In this case, ADR would have been better to replace the bad parts.

ADR is replacing on set dialogue with new dialogue recorded later in a studio or custom spaces to replicate sets after the film has been shot. If ADR isn't done well, it sounds terrible. The actor has to be good at it, and importantly, the dialogue sound engineer needs to know how to deal with it to make it sound like it was recorded in the environment we see on film.

For a feature, it's a time consuming process and you have to pay the actors more, so perhaps they didn't have the money for it on this film?

Sometimes directors don't like ADR, which is common. In this instance, hire a better sound recordist!

To explain the 'lack of options' term above, there are usually at least 2 microphones used to record actors lines. One is the boom which is often suspended over the actors heads, the other is the Lav which is hidden on the actors body as close to the mouth as possible.

Sometimes sound recordists stuff up Lav mic placement and all you get is scrapes and bumps from the clothes ribbing on the mic and the Lav recording becomes mostly unusable. You are then left with only the boom mic recording.

In noisy environments, boom mics can pick up as much background sound as dialogue, which is a pain and hard to edit. Here, digital audio cleanup software comes into play, and gets used to remove the background noise. If digital cleanup is done badly, you get the kind of dialogue quality which is present within too many shots in this film.

First off i love the old 80's & 90's buddy-cop Dog movies like James Belushi's Classic K-9 (1989) (which is one of my all-time favorite films since the video days) & it's direct-to-video 90's sequel K-911. But I'm not bothered about Hanks' Turner & Hooch as i felt it was abit too sad. But i also really liked Chuck's go at it with his 90's Top Dog & then that little Cop & Dog sub-genre seemed to die out.

Of course K-9 (1989) is the greatest dog cop film of all-time.

Then i saw the dvd cover of MUZZLE & instantly i was excited to check it out because it looked like one of those buddy-cop dog films i grew up loving.

MUZZLE stars Aaron Eckhart (the guy that was excellent as Harvey Dent aka: Two Face in The Dark Knight) & has Starred in many films including Paycheck, Olympus has Fallen, London has Fallen, I, Frankenstein, Battle: Los Angeles, In The Line of Duty The Core & many more, as a very rough & ready K-9 unit cop named Rosser, that starts to uncover a mystery surrounding his dog partners death. His original partner Ace is shot dead & Rosser loses it & that's the start of this dark & moody movie about loss, loneliness, anger & vengeance. There's actually a lot under the surface of MUZZLE, maybe a bit too much as not all of it is fully explored.

At the heart of MUZZLE is the fact dogs are real partners to cops & they mean as much to them as a human partner & This movie definitely captured that.

Aaron Eckhart seems to be revitalising his Career as a B-movie Action Star with lots of action-thriller films being released straight to dvd with his rugged face on them.

Eckhart is a capable actor with intensity & a hurt & bitter look in his eyes like a man that's seen it all & lived. So Aaron is great in this role as a tormented man that seems very lonely & very lost. His character is Jake Rosser & is a Los Angeles K-9 cop with a past in Afghanistan as a soldier that has seen it all & lived.

PTSD & a very gritty & apocalyptic looking LA are on show here in this serious thriller. Eckhart is great as he navigates his way around skid row of a very downtrodden underbelly of Los Angeles where drugs & homelessness are everywhere. The film looks great for a lower budget production & Eckhart is great on screen (although the role could've easily have been played by Thomas Jane & been just as good as their both so similar & both good actors) & his new dog partner he gets named Socks is a good actor for a dog. You see Eckhart's bitter & angry cop gets a new dog partner that has been through hell too, so both cop partners are messed up emotionally & have to learn to trust each other & get on. But the mystery of the film is abit weird & not fully explored or explained, in detail anyway. There's a new drug on the dirty, gritty downtown streets of Los Angeles & apparently Socks the dog was the crime syndicates property for sniffing out drugs or something? Or for testing drugs on? I'm not totally sure but it wasn't good either way. The bad guys of MUZZLE are never fully explored or really seen so we don't get that cool old school cop genre trope of having an awesome bad guy that our hero cops are tracking down. Some of the scenes & dialogue feel disjointed & unfocused properly. I feel there's alot cut from the movie but it didn't speed things up because the film is a slow character drama most of the time & definitely doesn't have enough action in it. There's a cop character that is an asshole & really dislikes Eckhart's cop but suddenly & surprisingly decides to help him near the final showdown at the end? That's bizarre & unexplained.

There's a nurse that seems to really fancy Eckhart that lives in his building & the relationship feels weird & there's no real chemistry at all.

Stephen Lang (Don't Breath 1&2) has a nice little part as an LAPD K-9 trainer.

At times i got glimpses of that K-9 movie feel i love, like when Eckhart is chatting to his dog in his car whilst cruising around Los Angeles but again its never fully explored to be fun & doesn't last long. I think MUZZLE wanted to be a more very serious police drama about the relationship between a police man & his police dog & in that case the film does it well but its just missing some more action sequences & a proper bad guy & better supporting characters.

Aaron Eckhart does his best with a low-key grumpy & depressed performance & he does act well. It was good to see him have to go to a psychiatrist to sort his head out as tough men never really seem to open up so those scenes are actually very important in todays mental health awareness times. Eckhart is on a mission to find out who killed his partner dog at the beginning of the movie & why? But seems no one is interested in helping him & worse is his superiors think he's losing it so he sets out to investigate on his own terms & time. There's typical cop genre tropes scattered throughout but done in more serious tone & it's definitely Eckhart that keeps the whole thing together.

MUZZLE is a decent little cop drama/thriller but don't expect old school cop action like i did because its disappointing in that way but good as a dark character piece.

I will watch it again & hopefully pick up bits i might have missed.

MUZZLE is a good watch & a decent cop film & is the very rare type of buddy-cop dog film you don't see anymore, it's a K-9 movie updated to our modern times & yeah i did like it even if it wasn't as good as i thought it could've been.

I must say that I absolutely loved this movie.

It was very heartbreaking and as a canine lover, just shows the true love between a dog and their human.

I love the interactions between the dog and owner and how it just shows that there are no bad animals, just bad owners.

I think it sends a very good message to the public. And should be embraced and shared. My dog watched it with me and she got very sad.

Don't know why some bad reviews.

An absolute wonderful heartfelt caring movie. I cannot fault it at all.

I will encourage anyone who loves animals to take the time and watch this gem. You will never be the same.

I feel like you have to have some sort of connection to dogs at the very least to comprehend the reason behind plot. Bonus if you're LE or a MWD Handler. These dogs are technically equipment, but they're so much more. They're a lifeline. Jake (Aaron Eckhart) has a military background and an LE job with a very expensive piece of equipment for a partner, multiple actually. (Ace and Sox/Socks) Right off from the start you get an insight to how he leans on this dog; he has full blown conversations while on patrol. (Any *loving* dog parent can tell you, we all have full blown convos with our dog. Sometimes even talking back to ourselves as the dog. LOL)

The fact the dogs in this story line were taken and turned into weapons for the bad (versus the greater good) is the heartbreaking part. The dogs are mere pawns. Jake is having none of it.

I don't quite grasp the negative reviews of this film. Was it a blockbuster? No. Did it keep my attention? Absolutely. (Which is no easy feat.) This is worth a rewatch down the line as well.

Overall, great movie. Not a 10, but great nonetheless.

I do have a soft spot for these type of movies... Channing Tatum's "Dog" was surprisingly good, I thought "A Dog's Purpose" was good also. I mean, Turner and Hooch set the bar (or should I say "stick"), it's a classic. I think the less said about K-9 the better. It seems an element of comedy helps these movies build the relationship between man and his would-be best friend. Here though, it's out and out drama with not much in the way of levity to break up the doom and gloom.

I think this started out well but the point where it really needed to start drawing you in to whatever the endgame was, it didn't. Aaron Eckhart did a decent job but I think was let down by the watered-down, John Wick-esque, murky underworld that he was tasked with infiltrating and ultimately toppling. A real lack of a crescendo with the final confrontation being somewhat absent of any real, ahem, 'bite'.

I give any movie I can sit through at least a 6. This gets a 6.5. Acting was solid all round. It tugged at my emotions a few times, dog lovers will relate, 7/10 for that. It has some good violence but mostly that was kept on a leash and gets a 6.5/10. The story was a 6/10, kinda weak ending and it would have been a 5 but it gets a 6 for being partially original. It was fine but could have done more with the romance and even some sex/nudity would have upped my rating. Also was just unfortunate that the setting was often amongst the homeless, really not pleasant or entertaining to immerse in. So yeah, a competent 6.5/10 for me, watch it with your best friend.

I am more than happy to suspend a little disbelief in most tv and movies but sadly this is all I seemed to be doing while watching Muzzle. Feels like the team of editors had a big fall out and this was patched together by a trainee.

I dont usually give spoilers but in this case i dont think it would make any difference to the viewing of this movie.

Watch out for a work colleague who hates Aaron and try and figure that relationship out.. or the love interest storyline or who the baddy is and how high that goes....

I also think 90% of the "actors" were actual real life skid row homeless people. Just an opportunity to put a little bit of money into these poor peoples hands and possibly some money into the K9 unit too.

All movies take hard work, teams and teams of people and actors and lots of time and money hence never giving less than 5..if I can help it. But I have to give 4/10 because it so bad.

Aaron eckhart isnt a bad actor but has been doing these tv style movies for a while now so unless he has a divorce, children's college or a failed business venture to pay for id suggest being more picky in his acting career as we all know he can do better.

I feel bad but its a 4.....just about.

Aaron Eckhart plays a K-9 police officer whose dog is killed on skid row. Eckhart then investigated who was responsible for his dog's death. This is not JOHN WICK, even if the plot sounds that way, but it's a very gritty cop drama and felt very credible. The depiction of skid-row homeless camps along city sidewalks was the most realistic I've ever seen committed to film and looked exactly like those when I walk around my own hometown downtown. The filmmakers make great use of practical locations throughout the film, which also lend to added level of realism. Additionally, the film's depiction of police procedures and cop attitudes seemed more accurately portrayed than most films. Of course, I'm not a cop and have no idea if it's accurate, but it seemed more real to me than most movies. Another major strength of the film is Eckhart, who is compelling and believable as the film's lead. Where the film falls apart somewhat is the investigation into who killed Eckhart's dog, which got overly complicated and bordered on conspiratorial (like it was some 90s Seagal film), which made the otherwise very realistic film feel less realistic. I read there is a sequel in the works, which based on this film's strengths I'm excited to see, but hope they use a plot more grounded in reality.

IN A NUTSHELL: The story is about a cop whose canine partner gets killed in the line of duty. After losing his dog, Jake Rosser plummets deep into a sinister underworld to uncover the truth about who may be responsible.

The film was directed by John Stalberg Jr, who also wrote it with Carlyle Eubank.

THINGS I LIKED: I've been a fan of Aaron Eckhart for years, and I usually like all of his movies, so I was interested in seeing this one. The movie is a study that shows how both his character and the dog are muzzled by past traumas.

I also really like Stephen Lang as an actor. His characters always look like they have a long story to tell about their background.

The movie shows a very ugly side of what's happening in America now. The streets are filled with homeless people in tents surrounded by garbage and worse things. The story takes place in Los Angeles which, sadly, has turned into a complete dumpster fire of a city.

The color palette of the film is dirty and grimy, perfectly representing the filthy underworld the movie is about.

You'll learn some German words because cops speak to their canine partners in German! I've heard that German Shepherds are one of the smartest dogs.

There is a suspenseful scene with some action that utilizes very interesting camera angles. Well done.

The ending is really sweet.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: The love interest is odd. The woman is a nurse with her own set of emotional baggage, so it's weird that she would be interested in an infamous, violent cop who has shown zero warmth toward her when they first met. She basically throws herself at him, vanishes for the majority of the story, and then shows up at the end of the movie with almost no more interaction with the cop.

The final villain looked like a cartoon character.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Profanity, including F-bombs We see prostitutes, crazy people, and druggies on the streets An explosion kills people Violence Blood A variety of weapons are used Cigarettes and alcohol use We see people get killed in various ways.

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Seems like a large chunk of the movie is spent building up on Aaron Eckhart's character which makes you think the movie is building on something that unfortunately never really comes. Its like getting to the princess in Super Mario without knowing, then before you know it the supposed climax already passed you and we are into the credits.

Disappointing watch unfortunately and could have been so much more. The moments with the dogs are enjoyable if you are a dog person and at least offers something in that sense.

Generic storyline with the usual police troupes, disappointing love interest and even worse a disappointing villain.

Aaron Eckhart is good and given the material at hand, delivers a performance difficult to criticise.

The rest of the cast ranges from bad to atrocious with many over acted deliveries and poor interpretation. I suspect the direction is at fault much of the time here, but the result is a hammy production that never has you anything more than superficially engaged.

There isn't anything interesting or exciting enough to grip you, and the film falls well short and anything remotely entertaining.

The plot is a simple premise but poorly done with overly long sequences, poor script and bad editing.

As usual there are the influenced reviews giving it high scores that can be largely ignored, but my honest advice is to simply miss this one. Chances are you won't enjoy it much (if at all) and if you do make it to the end, you'll probably realise it wasn't worth the investment in time.

Ignore the bad reviews. This is a very good movie with good acting. Aaron Eckhart plays the role perfectly. It shows the horrible conditions in Los Angeles and the vast homeless and drug use.

This is definitely one of the best K-9 / military dog movies out there. It shows how dangerous their job is and how good they are at it, especially with the fetanayl crisis that China is importing into the USA now.

This is just a straight-forward movie, without all of the nonsense hollywood is trying to feed down our throats nowadays. There have been few movies this year better than this one. I highly recommend.