Even the best-trained dogs sometimes leave a mess. This is perhaps the key take-home of Max, an earnest but ultimately exhausting movie about an armed forces canine stricken with post traumatic stress disorder. Too boring for little kids and too square for teens, this is the type of thing families put on when grandma is over, terrified that anything else might offend. To that end, it serves its loyal function.
“We thought we were training Max? Maybe Max was training us!” Okay, so the movie doesn’t actually say this, but there are other, just-as-bad howlers as the Wincott family of Texas adjusts to the death of their eldest son in Afghanistan. In addition to his foot locker, the family receives the pooch that he trained and worked with as a Marine, and, without question, it is touching to see the four-legged friend whimper at his fallen master’s flag-covered coffin. But the story quickly pivots from a look at grief in a time of endless and amorphous war to a PG-rated actioneer looking to take down arms dealers.
Director Boaz Yakin (whose early indies like Fresh were terrific) does all he can to evoke memories of ET: The Extra Terrestrial during this second half, but it ends up feeling a lot more like an episode of Scooby-Doo. It is ludicrous, relentless and even suffers from misguided machismo.
Dad (Thomas Haden Church) is a wounded vet himself from the first Gulf war, and doesn’t quite see eye-to-eye with his snarky younger son. Justin (Josh Wiggins) wears snotty T-shirts that poke fun at patriotism while trading in illegally downloaded video games. His wisecracking Mexican-American pal Chuy (Dejon LaQuake) is his connection to local tough Emilio (Joseph Julian Soria), whose inventory ranges from the latest Xbox releases to guns smuggled back (somehow) from the combat zone.
Turns out that Tyler (Luke Kleintank) was overseas with Justin’s brother, and is looking to make a deal with criminals from “over the border”. But Max sniffs something is up, and now that he’s bonded with Justin, the pair are soon cornered and must take him down.
Max’s return from depression to proud servant is surprisingly engaging – but really the only worthwhile thing in the picture. With the aid of Chuy’s fierce cousin Carmen (Mia Xiltali), Justin, who at first wants nothing to do with his dead brother’s crazy dog, finds in him a path to maturity. Carmen is quick-witted and confident, and wears an aggressive haircut, so you’d think the movie would stand by her when nasty Emilio tells her to “put on a dress or something.” But the film’s third act despatches her to “get help” right after planting a big wet one on young Justin, who is about to go do something brave and foolish. The next time we see her, she is, in fact, wearing a dress.
The loud, obnoxious finale to Max brings father and son together, through lots of registered, Constitutionally-protected gun action. When the baddies kidnap dad, Max tracks them by sniffing Dad’s holster. They can’t just call the cops because Justin is the only teen in America who doesn’t have a cellphone. He pirates videogames, but has no cell. “Why don’t you get a phone?” Chuy taunts him. You know what Chekhov said, if there’s no ringtone in the first act, it has to not-chime in the third.
Luckily, this movie isn’t just about stupid humans. There’s a great dog front and centre. I wouldn’t put it past the film-makers to have digitally enhanced the whites of his eyes (as they’ve clearly done with the 4 July fireworks) but there are some endearing pup moments mixed in with the extreme biking and stultifying conformity. Call me crazy, but the only human character that feels like a real person is the dishonorably discharged Marine who recognises that international arms dealers and bottom line-focused geopolitical scoundrels have been playing him for a fool. Yakin’s film presents him as a pitiful target deserving of a hiss, but I can’t help wonder if he’s maybe got more sense than those who just obey their masters.
