Wasting no time after shooting his 2003 Sundance Film Festival entry
The Event, director Thom Fitzgerald returned to Romania, the country that served as the setting for his 2001 Canadian-TV film
Wolf Girl, for this cerebral study of commerce, camaraderie, and degradation. The Wild Dogs explores the circumstantial relationship of Geordie (played by the director) and Victor (
David Hayman), two men who meet on a plane to Bucharest. Each is in the country for different reasons: Victor is a British diplomat in the city, and he and his wife Natalie (
Alberta Watson) and daughter Moll (
Rachel Blanchard) are among Romania's privileged class; Geordie, on the other hand, is a Canadian porn photographer sent to the country to shoot underage "talent" for his employer's website. Repulsed by the job he's been sent to accomplish, Geordie is instead captivated by the teeming masses of orphans, disfigured beggars, and the other homeless that flood Bucharest's streets. Just as he makes it his goal to help a crippled young man nicknamed "Sour Grapes" (Visinel Burcea, the spiritually-empty Natalie focuses on the dejected orphan Dorutu (Mihai Calota. Shot on digital video, the low-budget The Wild Dogs premiered at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival just a few months before the premiere of
The Event. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide