Rescued by Ruby

Dan O'Neil, a Rhode Island state trooper, wants into the search and rescue unit and keeps being turned down. At the shelter there is a dog adopted and returned again and again, one nobody can manage. The two find each other and enter search and rescue training together. The film is not interested in dog training. It is interested in unsuitability turning useful: Ruby's energy, treated as a problem, and Dan's dyslexia, which made school hard, are tied to the same point. The film says so outright. The form is family film: training scenes, a search in the woods, a few comic beats and a structure moving on familiar rails. The story is true. Dan O'Neil and Ruby, whom he took from the shelter, became one of the first search and rescue dog teams in the Rhode Island force, and in the real case a connection emerged between the missing teenager they found and Ruby's own past, which the film uses. Katt Shea directed. Grant Gustin plays Dan and Scott Wolf his commanding officer. It was released on Netflix. Who it is for: viewers who like animal films drawn from real events and something to watch as a family. Who it is not for: anyone bothered by emotional shortcuts. Every obstacle resolves on cue and the music keeps telling you what to feel.