A Documentary With New Bite

When we met the other day, Brown had just ended a meeting with foreign investors about a script he had pitched. Called "Sofa Kings," it's the tale of two blue-collar guys trying to start a carpet-cleaning business in one of Washington's toughest neighborhoods. The fourth-floor lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner, where they serve peanut butter cake and lemonade, seemed like the most unlikely of environments to discuss dogfighting. But there we were, going through all of the harrowing moments of Brown's experience as he munched one of the Ritz's green apples.

"I saw a dog biting another dog so hard the dog's teeth were coming out of his mouth, just dropping, one at a time," Brown says.

The most sickly fascinating figure in the documentary is a dogfighter identified as "Dog Man Tucson." He is a recurring character who consented to be interviewed only if he could wear a black ski mask, his eyes peering through tinted silver-rimmed glasses.

"We love these dogs," Dog Man says. "It's not the Ice Capades."

And: "In America, everybody loves competition. And they love brutality."

And: "These dogs are in it by choice, not by force. These dogs want to be in that box."

By box he means the fighting ring, a walled-off structure often splattered with blood. Dog Man Tucson doesn't talk about the dogs whose genitals are ripped apart in fights, whose eyes are gouged out, who chase and kill kittens as part of their training regimen, whose owners dispose of them if they don't win. Those not killed by their "dog men" are often euthanized; an estimated 3 million pit bulls a year meet this fate, according to the film, because they will not be adopted and there is nothing else to do with them.

"No matter what this country does, this sport will continue," Dog Man Tucson says.

Brown is philosophical about his film, believing it was essential to give everyone connected to dogfighting a say. But he is not neutral. "I wanted people to see the injustice."

As for what should happen to Vick, he says only: "I don't want to get caught up in the celebrity gossip. I don't want to judge any man. These dogs are the real victims. These are dogs being bred to die."