Venice 2024: Egyptian Doggie Movie ‘Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo’
by Alex Billington
September 7, 2024
Mr. Rambo deserves our all the treats and all of our love! It’s a particularly impressive year for dog movies – and here is another one that goes right on the list of dog movies that deserve our admiration in 2024. Aside from the Hollywood offerings like Arthur the Dog and Dog Gone, there is a growing selection of indies that are winning over dog lovers worldwide. Black Dog (my review) from China and Dog on Trial (my review) from Switzerland both premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. The Friend with a huge great dane in it just premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. And this one from Egypt titled Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo just premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival this fall. It’s an adorable, heartfelt tale of a man who goes off on an adventure to find a safe forever home for his dog after he gets into a fight with his neighbor. The plot is simplistic and straightforward, but it’s still a great dog movie. Now I can’t stop thinking about Rambo – he’s such a cutie, so expressive and charming. Another champion doggo in a movie.
Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo is co-written by Khaled Mansour and Mohamed El-Hosseiny, and is directed by Egyptian filmmaker Khaled Mansour – making his feature directorial debut following a few other short films. The film stars Essam Omar as Hassan, a poor young man living in a working-class neighborhood of Cairo. His grumpy, acidic, asshole neighbor wants to tear down the home he shares with his mother so that he can expand his garage and mechanic business into the space. Hassan and his mother refuse, but he keeps getting more aggressive. One day his lovely, white fur doggo named Rambo bites the neighbor in what is a fairly justified response when he gets into a fight with Hassan. Alas, this sets him on a warpath to get rid of the dog, so Hassan and Rambo go on the run around Cairo. Luckily Rambo already has his own super cute helmet that he wears when he rides in the sidecar attached to Hassan’s motorcyle. Off they go trying to find a safe place that Rambo can live so that Hassan can deal with this guy, while also hoping this guy doesn’t find them. Rambo, who’s played by two dogs listed as the “Rambo Brothers” in the credits, is a generic street dog from Egypt, and he’s amazing. Their performance as Rambo is the right amount of realistic & adorable.
Mansour’s Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo has a few flaws that are usually present in debut feature films, but they’re not that problematic and don’t really get in the way of the emotional core of the narrative. I fell in love with Rambo and that’s all that really matters for me. It isn’t a particularly original or ambitious story, following Hassan as encounters the usual cliche selection of annoying suitors and angry people along the way. And when he gets all the way out to a dog shelter, which seems to be one of the only places left despite most of the dogs being locked up in cages, of course things don’t work out there for other reasons. There’s a few creative choices with the filmmaking, but Mansour is not trying to make it too artistic or experimental. Mr. Rambo is an engaging film because it is simple and familiar, because it just another heartwarming story about a dog lover who won’t let anyone harm his dog. For anyone nervously curious, the dog does get into harm’s way a few times, but thankfully he is not killed (this dog does not die). Most dog movies these days are kind enough to not do this anymore, lest it wouldn’t be a doggo movie (it’d be a drama with a dog in it).
Along with Black Dog and Dog on Trial, Seeking Haven for Mr. Rambo is now the third great dog film from film festivals in 2024 that I’ll be mentioning for the rest of the year and recommending to other dog lovers. The cinematography is excellent, and the story is engaging enough, but most of all the doggo Rambo is one you’ll never forget after watching him on screen for 102 minutes. More good-hearted stories like this, please.
Alex’s Venice 2024 Rating: 7 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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