Oliver & Company

Oliver & Company is a very solid film. Nothing in it is exactly spectacular but none of it painful in any way. Disney basically took Oliver Twist and morphed it into a story with cats and dogs set in the 1980s. Of course they take their own liberties such as adding an extremely racist Mexian chihuahua played by Cheech Marin. While that may seem awful on paper, its execution is pretty good. In fact the execution of everything is okay. It's all really solid overall. Oliver is just the right amount of cute, the side characters have very solid entertainment value, the music is enjoyable and the central conflict is engaging enough to keep your interest.

 Oliver is the only cat with a name in the movie and is our protagonist. Just like the rest of the movie he does exactly what he needs to. He's cute, his actions influence the story, and he isn't voiced by an obnoxious child actor with a lisp. Caturday is all about cat media, but Oliver & Company is mostly dogs. The film follows Oliver as he is alone in the streets, adopted by a group of dogs with their homeless owner. He is then adopted by a little rich girl. After the dogs rescue him, he wants to go back to the girl. The homeless Jew, meanwhile, owes Mr. Sykes some money and concocts a plan to get the rich girl's money (who he thinks is a rich man) by trading Oliver for ransom money. When he finds out it is a little girl, he does not take her money and Mr. Sykes tries to kill him in a ridiculous chase scene where he follows them onto subway rails.

            There isn’t a lot to the plot and that’s because the movie is fairly short, only about 100 minutes. It actually works it its advantage though. The pacing is very strong, making sure there is never a dull moment. It also doesn’t overstay its welcome. The only love story is a comedic love story between Tito, the Mexican Chihuahua, and Georgette, the snotty poodle. The story and its surrounding jokes take up just a few minutes overall, and it’s all handled well so that it doesn’t bog down the movie. There are no long scenes which deliver unneeded exposition on the supporting cast. We don’t even know much about Mr. Sykes.

            Speaking of Mr. Sykes, why does a homeless man owe him money in the first place? Why would a mob boss give a homeless man money or anything else in the first place? My theory is that Mr. Sykes was not as powerful as the movie makes you believe. Mr. Sykes runs his operation on an isolated section at the docks. His only henchmen are two Dobermans. That seems like a pretty small operation. Really, Mr. Sykes is nothing more than a small business owner, who is in an unloving relationship with his wife and kids and decided to spice up his life by playing mob boss with a homeless man. He bought a couple of trained dogs, a cheap piece of land at the docks, found a homeless man, and let the games begin. He let it go out of control until it led to his death in a ridiculous chase scene.

            Of course none of that is true, but I like to believe it is. It explains some of the narrative gaps. While there are gaps, they aren’t plot holes. They could be easily explained with a couple of sentences yet the movie decides that those details aren’t important. It sets out to tell a solid self-contained story and does a very fine job with that. There’s nothing bad, nothing amazing, it’s just a very solid children’s film.

Final Purrdict: Pawsitive