Lightning the Dog is the Only Reason to Watch When Lightning Strikes

Is it worth the time?

If you have a soft spot for silent films or just want to see a dog act better than half the people in the credits, then yes, give When Lightning Strikes a look. If you need snappy dialogue or don't have the patience for slow-burn wilderness melodrama, you will probably be bored stiff within ten minutes. It is a product of its time, which is to say it feels like a postcard from a century ago that got slightly damp.

Lightning the German Shepherd is the real star here, obviously. He has this way of looking at the camera that feels more honest than the human actors, who are mostly busy telegraphing their emotions to the back row of a theater. There’s a scene near the middle where he has to navigate a rocky ledge, and you can tell the dog is actually doing the work while the humans are just standing around waiting for their cues.

The plot is… well, it’s a plot. It exists to get our four-legged friend into various scrapes. It’s not quite as inventive as the hijinks in Pinocchio, but it has a certain earnestness that is hard to dislike. The pacing is weirdly uneven, like the editor was working on a deadline and just decided to leave the long shots of the woods in because they looked nice.

Small things I noticed:

• The way Lightning tilts his head at the villain is genuinely funny.
• Some of the outdoor photography is surprisingly sharp for the era.
• There is a distinct lack of urgency in the chase sequences.
• The humans look like they are constantly afraid of tripping over their own costumes.

Comparing this to something like Drifters feels a bit unfair, but you can see the same obsession with the raw power of the environment. Here, though, the environment is just a backdrop for the dog to be heroic. It’s cute, even if it’s totally predictable. 🐾

I found myself zoning out during the dialogue cards, which were probably fine, but I kept waiting for the dog to do something else. The film gets noticeably better once it stops trying to build up the human stakes and just lets the dog walk through the brush. Honestly, who needs a complex script when you have a well-trained dog? Not me, apparently.

It’s not a masterpiece, but it doesn’t try to be. It’s just a dog movie from a time when they didn't have CGI to cheat the hard stuff. That counts for something, I think. 🐕