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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
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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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