Frustrated with her dead-end job and difficult relationship with her parents, 19-year old Megan Leavey enlists with the Marines. It's not an immediately successful decision. Although she successfully completes basic training, Leavey still doesn't have a lot of direction in her life. At least, she doesn't until a misdemeanor lands her with a week's punishment detail, cleaning the kennels of the bomb-sniffing dogs.
Leavey sets out to prove her worth and earn a place on the K9 unit, studying hard for exams, working on her fitness, and practising her marksmanship until she is rated 'expert' with a rifle. On her eventual success, she is paired up with a German Shepherd named "Rex", and - once she and the highly-strung animal have bonded - they are deployed to Iraq. It's dangerous work in a war zone, but for Leavey and Rex, the real battle will start when the deployment ends, and Leavey must fight to be able to give Rex a home.
As the image above says, this is based on a true story. Megan Leavey is a real person (and has a cameo as a minor character in the film), who really did serve in Iraq, receiving the Achievement Medal with a "V" device for heroism in combat, and who waged a public (and successful) campaign to save Rex from being put to sleep when he was no longer able to work.
This film is a solid if perhaps slightly by the numbers biopic. It perhaps spends a little too long getting to the point where Leavey and Rex team up, it glosses over some of the challenges faced by women in the military, and it's guilty of being a bit vague about dates in order to make the narrative more straightforward. Still, I certainly don't regret watching it. If you want a feel-good movie about a brave woman and her dog, it's certainly got you covered!
(If, on the other hand, you want something that does more to explore that it is like being a woman in the military, then I recommend the book Love My Rifle More Than You).
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