Forgotten Heroes: Dog Soldiers’ Sarge

By Owen Quinn author

Photo copyright Pathe

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

2002 saw the release of Dog Soldiers, written and directed by Neil Marshall. A group of soldiers on a training exercise in the Scottish Highlands find themselves trapped in a life or death battle with werewolves.

It was a massive hit and quickly became a fan favourite. As well as being a great movie, there is nothing like it. Part of its success is down to the cast and their flawless chemistry throughout the movie. You believe they are really a team with all their moans and groans but all dedicated to their duty. They were led by Sarge who was played by Gotham’s Sean Pertwee.

Sean is a wonderful actor and doing a hard-nosed soldier with his cockney accent is almost like breathing to him. I met him back in 2022 at a convention in Lisburn outside Belfast and that was another off my bucket list. I never got to meet his dad, Doctor Who and Worzel Gummidge star Jon Pertwee but this made up for it. He was charming, talkative and genuinely interested in his fans.

As Sarge, Pertwee brings a life to him that you can identify with. He is glad his friend Cooper (Kevin McKidd) didn’t make the Special Forces selection run by Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham). His squad are like family to him and he will protect them with everything he has. But he will kick their arses at every opportunity to make them the best that they can be. Sarge is an everyman and loves his football. The thought of never seeing his wife again terrifies him and when he speaks you listen.

This is best demonstrated in the campfire scene when he tells the story of a mate getting a devil tattoo. Eddie Oswald was his name and done to commemorate their first trip to Kuwait to mop up the last vestiges of resistance there. As a religious man Eddie knew God had his soul but his flesh was beyond redemption. So he got a laughing devil on his arse as Satan might save his skin. A few days later he was killed by an anti tank mine. Having to scoop his remains up with a shovel and put them in a bin bag affected Sarge deeply. But they found a piece of skin perfectly intact with the laughing devil. In a way Eddie was right, Satan did save his skin, just not all of it. Sarge has kept an open mind ever since.

When the werewolves attack, Sarge is slashed across the stomach, his intestines falling out. In agony he desperately tries to put them back in with Cooper’s help. They are conveniently rescued by zoologist Megan (Emma Cleasby) who takes them to a nearby house. Cooper gets the Sarge upstairs and manages to glue him back together after getting him drunk and punching him unconscious. A drunken Sarge tells Cooper he loves him and they beat back a werewolf that tries to come through the window.

When they discover the role Captain Ryan has played in all this and that Sarge and his team were only bait to lure out the wolves, Sarge attacks Ryan demonstrating his loyalty for his men. But he gets a taste of his future when Ryan turns into a wolf before them. Despite this, Sarge is determined to kill every wolf out there.

But it soon becomes clear that Sarge is healing too fast and now infected with the werewolf gene. He knows he is going to die but goes down fighting when Megan reveals she is also a wolf and lets her back in. He knows he is done for so forces Cooper into the cellar and cuts the gas line. He instructs Cooper to prove this happened for him and his lads. Even in his last moments, Sarge is more concerned for his men. He begins to transform as the wolves burst in and the whole house explodes.

Sarge has some classic one-liners in the movie like when Megan gives them her sob story that she never wanted to run with the pack and hoped Cooper would save them. She begins to transform after her pity party so Sarge shoots her in the head deadpanning “Somebody had to put it out of its misery.”

When they find the Special forces camp wrecked covered with blood and body parts, he tells them that if Little Red Riding Hood turns up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, he expects them to chin the bitch.

There is a great humor in the character especially when he is trapped in a toilet with an aerosol and a lighter fending a wolf off with his homemade flamethrower.

“I’m in the khazi!” he yells when Cooper calls for him. The wolf is tearing at the door and Sarge is burning it where he can. This is funny but also a possible in-joke as when his dad became Doctor Who he said there was nothing scarier than finding a yeti sitting in your loo. Now his son years later is fighting a werewolf in the loo.

Pertwee brings a huge amount to the character who provides the comic relief as well as being the backbone for his squad. They have been nothing more than fodder for a secret project. Good soldiers, his family, have been reduced to sacrificial lambs and all his hopes lie with Cooper now to expose it. You can be sure of one thing. Sarge will forever be looking down pushing for the truth to be told.