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Saturday, June 27, 2015

MOVIE REVIEW Max
A Dog Of A Movie That Simply Doesn’t Hunt


Old tricks, new show: The eponymous star of "Max".
  Warner Brothers 
       

by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com        Follow popcornreel on Twitter FOLLOW                                           
Saturday, June 27, 2015


“Max”, a mannered after-school special feature drama, is an example of a dog being the smartest character in a movie chocked full of clumsy, not-so-smart humans. Shabbily written by a quartet of writers and poorly acted, “Max” is a Belgian Malinois bomb-detecting dog.  The film salutes such dogs but most of “Max” barely touches on its end credits salute. 

“Max” opens in Afghanistan during the U.S. war in 2002.  Max’s loyal handler and U.S. marine Kyle Wincott (Robbie Amell) is killed under mysterious circumstances.  His surviving younger brother Justin (Josh Wiggins), a lazy lug who sloths around his God-fearing parents at home, is left to pick up the pieces with wonder dog Max.  What a summer bummer for the shiftless Justin.  Adopted, Max is now part of the Wincott family.

The adolescent Justin and his war veteran dad (Thomas Haden Church) have their “trust but verify” moments but any Cold War Justin and his papa have vanishes after Max smells a rat or two behind Kyle’s untimely death.  Max has known the answers to the film’s softball riddles for a good half-hour — as have we as an audience — before the onscreen humans get an idea.

Feature films about animals can be sincere and touching (“Lassie”), clever (“The Adventures Of Milo And Otis”), insightful ("White Dog") or greatly entertaining (“Babe”).  They can also be downright exploitive (“Marley And Me”) or corny.  (The film’s producers produced the latter film.)  Regrettably “Max” falls into the cornball and cheese category, with characters and dialogue as flat as pancakes. Lines are uttered without conviction.  There may as well have been lines of coke snorted off the page. 

All the Latino characters (except one) in “Max” embody racist stereotypes: angry, criminal, amorous seductresses (for no developed reason) toward Justin, the film’s blandest character, or they are self-deprecating about or genuflecting to racist stereotypes assigned to them.  “I’d better get back before Border Patrol catches me,” Chuy (Dejon LaQuake), an annoying Latino male character, says.

In “Max” and other 2015 Hollywood movies (including “Black Or White”, “Spare Parts”, “McFarland, USA”) a Black or Latino character’s self-deprecation is never based on their individual traits or circumstances as a person.  Such humor is always mired in racial stereotypes or a self-imposed set of white society’s low expectations of them.  All of which suggests that in “Max” Chuy is presented for sheer folly to a white audience -- or any audience -- to laugh at rather than with.  Chuy, a teenager, is imbued with the collective white American society’s assumptions about him, and often in “Max” in his exaggerated accent he merely verbalizes those assumptions as a coping mechanism in a bigoted society, even though there’s no general society of bigotry by the white characters in “Max”.  There needn’t be.  Full of retorts and punchlines, Chuy is the piñata that keeps on giving and getting whacked, mostly and exclusively by his own hands.

The pervasive racial politics in this tame, flatlined effort by director Boaz Yakin (“Fresh”) even extend to the two “bad” dogs Max tussles with.  This set of jet-black dogs aren’t to be trifled with.  Neither of them are members of the 101 Dalmatians Club.  This duo are ready to gnarl and gnash with the best of them as soon as cinematographer Stefan Czapsky trains his lens their way.  I can say with complete confidence that Max would have been silly putty in Cujo’s hands, but with much less daunting opposition here, Max uses agility and a bark or two to stand tall and quietly heroic, despite the film’s occasionally overbearing soundtrack.  These dog moments where Max is action hero provided the lone enjoyment of “Max” for me.  I only wish Mr. Yakin had blown the dog whistle on the rest of his own film.  If he did, I surely didn’t hear it for all the film’s high-pitched posturing.

Whatever the race of the audience watching this puzzling and mostly sedate affair, “Max” as a family film underwhelms.  Mr. Yakin forces drama and sentiment upon the viewer and pulls rabbits out of non-existent hats.  In one or two scenes when all is calm, suddenly something nonsensical happens.  “Max” is rushed, melded together in a cheap, expedient way and overstuffed with clichés.  Even so, nuggets of enjoyment can be found in “Max” for dog-lovers (and I count myself among them) but overall “Max” as a movie is a summer dog that just doesn’t hunt.

Also with: Lauren Graham, Luke Kleintank, Mia Xitlali, Miles Mussenden, Jay Hernandez, Joseph Julian Soria.

“Max” is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association Of America for action violence, peril, brief language and some thematic elements.  The film’s running time is one hour and 51 minutes.

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