Tracked
Director Ken Russell (Women In Love, Tommy, Whore) used to have clout and acclaim, as well as the ability to get bat-shit crazy projects like Altered States and Lisztomania (a rock opera about Franz Liszt starring Roger Daltrey) made. For a brief period, Dean Cain was a much-loved hunk, thanks to his stint as Superman in TV's Lois & Clark. Bryan Brown was a superstar in Australia who found some success in America with films like F/X and Cocktail. Tia Carrere briefly had her video, a cover of Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz," played on MTV when she starred in Wayne's World. While it probably wasn't inevitable that they would all end up working on the same movie, it's not like it took an especially fortuitous arrangement of the heavens to put them in the same place, considering the career path each has taken since his or her moment in the sun. In the Showtime-produced movie Tracked, Cain plays a hot-headed convict who, once in jail, is recruited by Brown to work with the canine unit, becoming a "dog boy" (hence the film's alternate title, Dog Boys) and regularly running through the woods in order to train an apparently high-maintenance pack of vicious German shepherds in the art of man-hunting. Apparently, no one questions the need for constant training—that is, until District Attorney Carrere comes along. With Cain, they look into the secret past that drives Brown's doggie passion and desire to hunt what has been called, in Tracked's uncredited source, the most dangerous game. The premise is loony enough for Russell to make something of it, but he doesn't. In fact, it's as dull as any movie revolving around Dean Cain being chased by giant dogs can be, although Brown does seem to have fun spitting out the phrase "dog boy" in a thick Australian accent as often as possible.