GABRIELA Cowperthwaite’s love letter to animals continues in her new movie, Rex.

The American director made her breakthrough with Blackfish, a powerful documentary film about the impact of keeping killer whales in captivity which pretty much brought SeaWorld to its knees.

Her follow-up, Rex – also named Megan Leavey in other countries – is another true story with an animal at its heart but this time it is a dramatisation of events during the Iraq War.

Kate Mara (House of Cards) plays Marine Corporal Megan Leavey whose bond with her German Shepherd military dog and ‘bomb sniffer’ saved many lives in 2005 and 2006.

Over the course of their service, Megan and Rex – a previously difficult and overly aggressive dog – completed more than 100 missions until an IED (improvised explosive device) injures them and puts them both in jeopardy.

Rex is reminiscent of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker in that it shows the toll of war from a personal perspective as well as the intensity and life and death stakes that people face.

In some ways, Cowperthwaite’s feature hits even harder than The Hurt Locker because it is based on a real person whose service to her country and her bond with her dog was in many ways her redemption.

In essence, the film is set in three parts – Megan finding herself and subsequent training, her service in Iraq and her feeling of being lost all over again after the military – and it completely draws you in.

The story does not end there and, without you even realising it, the movie has got its hooks into you.

It is incredibly moving tale for any animal lover, backed up by an excellent central performance by Kate Mara.

The most hard-hearted among us may claim that Rex is overly sentimental but Cowperthwaite draws back enough so as not to be emotionally manipulative and her work is a reminder that love and hope can be found in the most unlikely places.

RATING: 8/10

DAVID MORGAN