A Documentary With New Bite

Dogfighting Scandal Brings Attention to Local Filmmaker's 2005 Work on a Cruel Sport

Bobby J. Brown's film took 14 years to make. (Image From "Off The Chain")

Way before Michael Vick got popped and became the scorned symbol of organized dogfighting, Bobby Brown spent years penetrating the secret society Vick inhabited. With cameras that resembled pagers and a microphone fastened to his zipper, Brown made a remarkable documentary on this underground subculture.

It took him 14 years. He began in 1991, got derailed, restarted, even got busted at one of the 12 dogfights he witnessed. Brown was intent on sounding an alarm, he says, about a cruel, menacing and illegal activity taking place in basements, barnyards, clearings in the woods and abandoned warehouses all across America.

(Just to be clear, we're not talking about Whitney Houston's incorrigible ex-husband. Not that Bobby Brown. This is Bobby J. Brown -- Suitland High School graduate, businessman, actor with small parts in "The Wire," "The Corner," "City by the Sea" and "Major League II" as Tom Berenger's double.)

When Brown finished his documentary, "Off the Chain," he shopped it around and got no takers. With help from actor Troy Garity ("Barbershop"), Brown's buddy from his days studying at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the 60-minute documentary was picked up by Allumination FilmWorks and released to DVD in 2005. It got the "must-see" stamp of approval from the Humane Society and was well received among devoted dog protectors. But it didn't have the major impact Brown had craved.

"It's unfortunate that a celebrity has to get charged to bring this to light," he says. "I was trying to get the public interested in this years ago, and they weren't interested."

They're interested now.

The Vick case has moved organized dogfighting to the front pages of newspapers and the top of TV newscasts. Brown has become an instant analyst on talk shows, and his film has seen a bit of a resurgence. Best Buy has picked it up. And Cheryl Freeman, chief executive officer of Allumination FilmWorks, reports a spike in sales since news of Vick's involvement in the dogfighting enterprise Bad Newz Kennels broke earlier this summer. Thirty thousand copies of "Off the Chain" have been sold, she says, which might not seem like much. "But with a title like this, that's a lot of units. This is not a Wal-Mart film. The normal consumer is not going to pick up this title."

The "normal" consumer has been processing a range of emotions conjured by the latest case of a star athlete in trouble -- and not just about the merits of pitting dogs against each other for sport and the awfulness of electrocuting those that don't perform well. Yesterday, outside the courthouse in Richmond where Vick pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges, there was a kind of street-corner debate on display. Those on Vick's side were singing hymns, wearing his No. 7 Atlanta Falcons jersey and seeking forgiveness for the quarterback. Those in opposition brandished photos of brutalized dogs and demanded that there be no leniency for Vick, carrying signs that said, among other things, "Prosecute All Dogfighters. Justice for All Victims."

The debate was not confined to the scene. It ricocheted across the landscape of race, class and geography yesterday, touching down in discussions about the fairness of the criminal justice system, the need to be accountable for one's actions and society's acceptance of the hunting and mistreatment of other animals.

Ron Thomas, a veteran sports journalist and director of Morehouse College's Journalism and Sports Program in Atlanta, sees in Vick's guilty plea a clarion lesson. "Black athletes need to be more responsible, need to make better decisions on what they do and how they conduct their life, and need to make better choices on who their friends are," he says. "The good that can come out of this, hopefully, is other athletes can see how disastrous this can be when they don't make good decisions."

Brown's documentary wasn't about any of that. He had been noticing disturbing signs of dogfighting in his neighborhood and wanted to do something dramatic about it. (Brown, who grew up in Suitland, has requested that his current places of residence and business not be revealed out of concern for the safety of his family.) When "Off the Chain" was released, he got death threats and someone left dead pigeons on his car. "One guy called me and said, 'You broke the code of Jesus Christ.' And my wife called me a fool. She said, 'You're bringing trouble right to your door.' "

As an actor, Brown, 43, has played mostly cops. Perhaps that prepared him for his biggest role to date: tricking dogfighters into believing he was one of them. While filming his first fight -- "I was a bundle of nerves" -- as a guest of a known dogfighting figure who didn't know Brown's true purpose, someone observing him yelled out, "See that guy right there? He's an informant." Brown's only choice, he thought, was to play tough. "Who you calling an informant?" And then he slugged his accuser, breaking his jaw and touching off a melee that shut down the dogfight and earned him props, at least among those he was traveling with.