Max

In the long history of cinema, there have been a lot of movies about a boy and his dog.  But, I think it's safe to say that Max is the first one that concerns a boy and his dog going up against a Mexican cartel that deals with illegal weapons.  I'm not quite sure who this movie is being marketed to, honestly.  Kids will love the heroic dog, obviously, but the movie is incredibly violent for one rated-PG and being marketed as family entertainment, with gunfights, people dying in fiery explosions, and said heroic dog being threatened at gunpoint by the kid's father, and shot at by the villain in another scene.

The story opens in Afghanistan, where Max the dog is a Belgian Malinois enlisted by the American military to sniff out hidden caches of weapons, or alert the soldiers if there is trouble nearby.  Max (who is actually played by four different dogs) is one of the better animals I've seen in the movies lately.  He's not just heroic and good at his job, but he's sweet and likable as well.  His human partner and handler is a Marine named Kyle Wincott (Robbie Amell), who has a close bond with Max.  On the job together, they're able to uncover a Taliban weapons cache hidden under a floor panel in a home.  At night, as Kyle sleeps, Max lays faithfully at the side of his bed.  Alas, tragedy quickly strikes when Kyle is killed in action.

We then cut to Texas, where the Wincott family receives word of Kyle's death and are now in mourning.  The family includes the father Ray (Thomas Hayden Church), a former Marine himself, teenage son Justin (Josh Wiggins), and mother Pamela (Lauren Graham), who has always tried to hold the family together, and finds it even harder now that Kyle is gone.  At Kyle's funeral, Max is brought in, and he seems to know that his handler is in the casket, as the dog races toward it, and hangs his head mournfully.  Unfortunately, Max has taken Kyle's death pretty hard, and no one in the military can handle him anymore, as he lashes out violently at anyone who comes near him.  When young Justin approaches him, however, Max calms down immediately.  He can somehow sense that Justin is Kyle's brother.  The family decides to take Max home with them, even though Justin is not crazy about the idea initially.

The boy and canine have a rough start to their relationship, but things pick up quickly when Justin meets a pretty new girl in town named Carmen (Mia Xitlali) who happens to know a lot about dogs, and helps him train Max.  Before you know it, Justin and Max are racing all over town together, and having little adventures with Carmen and Justin's best friend, Chuy (Dejon LaQuake).  I was with the movie up to this point.  Then it starts to go off the rails with the introduction of another Marine and Kyle's childhood friend, Tyler (Luke Kleintank).  We know that Tyler is up to no good in an early scene in Afghanistan when some weapons go missing, and Kyle suspects him.  Now that Tyler is back home (supposedly due to an injury he sustained), he's involved in shady illegal weapons deals with a Mexican cartel and other criminals.  Justin's parents won't listen to him when he tries to tell them what's going on, so it's up to Justin, Max, Carmen and Chuy to take down the weapon smugglers themselves.

If Max had been a story of a boy and a military dog helping each other heal, this easily could have been something wonderful.  Instead, it gets completely sidetracked with ludicrous action scenes that are surprisingly harsh and violent for a movie that's obviously trying to appeal to young boys.  What are we to make of a movie that seems to stress patience and understanding between people and animals and even fathers and sons, yet ends with almost all of the villains dying in various horrible ways?  I can imagine some of the images in the film being very frightening or troubling to very young children.  And that doesn't even include the scene where Justin's father threatens to kill Max and points a gun at him, after Tyler lies to him and tells him that Max turned on Kyle and was responsible for his death.

Yes, this is one of those movies where the kids are smarter than the adults, and are allowed to go on dangerous adventures tracking down murderers and weapon smugglers without anyone noticing.  Naturally, Justin's mom and dad choose to believe Tyler for a majority of the film, and even help him get a job at the dad's storage garage facility, where he hides the weapons without anyone knowing.  The thing is, before the movie got distracted with all the violence, the movie was working for me.  I liked the kid, I loved the dog, and the movie seemed to be trying to have something to say about military families and the effects of grief.  Then it forgets all that, and has the kids chasing down bad guys on their bikes.  It's almost as if director and co-writer Boaz Yakin had a change of heart halfway through the project.  Either that, or he lost his nerve to make an intelligent and thoughtful movie.

With Jurassic World still breaking box office records, and Inside Out still fresh in theaters, I don't know if Max really stands much of a chance at theaters this summer.  The movie's kind of sad, somber and pretty violent in an all too realistic way for a family film.  Something tells me kids will probably opt for something that's a bit more fun than this. 

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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