Palm Pictures in association with Dog Leg Media presents Sun Dogs, a movie directed and produced by Andrea Stewart. It includes several local Jamaican personalities and officials along with performer and sponsor of the team, Jimmy Buffett. Also featured is the brainchild of these projects (the Dog Sled Team and the movie), Danny Melville. Sun Dogs runs 90 minutes and is presented as not rated by the MPAA.
Sun Dogs follows the development of the Jamaican Dog Sled team program. This program (the Dog Sled Team) is both a fund raiser and promotional tool for the island nation’s tourism economy. Following a documentary style, the movie introduces several players in the Dog Sled Team, and follows the training process and the people who will be the team’s competitive representatives.
Sun Dogs is professionally filmed and edited. The production quality is sound and a review of the credits shows that Palm Pictures was involved early in the life of the project. The movie includes stock film components and except for an item that is clearly a promotional television advertisement for Jamaica, it is difficult to determine what shots are stock films and what was shot specifically for the film.
The most profound thing I can write about Sun Dogs is that my Jack Russell Terrier, Buster, found the film very interesting. Such is always the case when dogs are presented on screen; so really it is not stating anything of much substance that he was interested. Early in this movie Danny Melville, the man behind the Dog Sled idea, comments that early in the development of the project he thought of a promotional film. At the time he was thinking of an animated film and some animated clips are a part of this movie, but they are not from Pixar as he originally envisioned. Instead, the animation is provided by a smaller house called Little Engine Moving Pictures. This movie seems to be the result of that original animated promotional film idea.
Sun Dogs is fine for something to watch while passing the time, waiting for some more serious fare to become available, say Letters From Iwo Jima, for example. Its lack of an MPAA rating is no big deal – the producers probably did not want to pay any associated fees. Sun Dogs, much like a made-for-TV movie, is suitable for the entire family.