A man dies in a road accident and is reincarnated as a dog, but remembers his former life. A pretty neat idea (author James Herbert's) has been well translated to the screen in this fantasy, even though the location has, inevitably, been moved from Britain to the States. Matthew Modine is the man who dies (his voice lives on as the dog), Nancy Travis plays his wife. Fluke the dog grows up and gets street-smart (helped by fellow canine Rumbo, voiced by Samuel L Jackson) but cannot forget his former life and sets out to find his family. At this point, things could have slipped into Disney territory, but the film maintains a slightly harder edge, keeping sentimentality at bay for most of the time. Director Carlo Carlei never lets us forget that it's Fluke's story, often having the camera at a dog's eye level, giving the film a distinctive visual style. Worth watching.

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