Max

I’d like to start by addressing the rating criteria for Mountain Xpress film reviews; in short, there are none. The only guideline I was ever given was a proscription against rating a film with zero stars, sadly an issue that has already come up in my brief tenure as a critic for this fine publication. I mention all of this because my rating for Max is artificially inflated. This film has received 2 1/2 stars; one for the tremendous performances of the dogs involved, one for the simple fact that parts of the film were somewhat competently shot in Western North Carolina, and a half-star because its insipid script is at least on par with the worst films I’ve seen this year, and possibly a hair better when I’m feeling generous.

Max is a disjointed and poorly written attempt to patronize a very specific audience. If you watch Fox News to have your worldview reaffirmed and believe that American flags should outnumber the human beings you interact with on a daily basis, then Max might just be the film for you. There is nothing wrong with patriotism or sentimentality, but this film cynically employs these laudable drives to exploit an audience its writers clearly do not respect. Populated by some of the thinnest characters to appear on screen in 2015, Max leans heavily on the charisma of its canine lead (and his stunt doubles), but despite the strength of the dogs’ performances, a cliché-ridden script and ham-fisted direction drag the proceedings into the muck faster than a pup fresh out of the bath. The story of a Belgian Malinois (Carlos) who is retired from service in the Marine Corps after his handler Kyle (Robbie Amell) is killed in an ambush, Max’s premise sounds promising until one considers that its writing team consists of the person responsible for penning Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights  (director Boaz Yakin) partnered with a man who wrote at least four Van Damme vehicles and the weakest entry in the Rambo franchise (Sheldon Lettich).

Thomas Hayden Church and Lauren Graham are under-utilized as Kyle’s long-suffering parents, characters that would’ve seemed too stereotypical for a Lifetime movie cobbled together in two hours from three different scripts. This leaves the audience with no choice but to identify with Kyle’s insufferable younger brother Justin (Josh Wiggins) and his arbitrarily hispanic friends (Mia Xitlali, Dejon LaQuake) as they navigate a thoroughly implausible suburban arms deal. Somewhat unsurprisingly, our two middle-aged white writers struggle to capture the voices of a cast of multi-ethnic teenagers. Incompetent characterization aside, the film’s greatest sin is its excessive appeal to emotion. Every cheap tear-jerking trick in the book is carted out and played to the hilt. From Max’s grandstanding at his handler’s funeral to a third act too ridiculous for summary, the film attempts to pull every heart-string, and once those are exhausted it starts looking for strings attached to other organs. The result of all this saccharine sentimentality is something akin to being drowned in Hallmark cards for just shy of two hours.

While the scenes in which the North Carolina mountains stand in for southern Texas are indeed pleasant to look at, 60 years worth of other major films shot in the area have established that it can be done better.  No amount of scenery or canine value can cover a poorly executed attempt to cash in on blatant jingoism. Instead of shelling out the money to see Max, I encourage interested readers to look into adopting a retired military working dog. Hundreds of dogs retire from service every year and are in need of good homes. Though the process is some what more stringent than typical adoption, most if not all of the dogs eligible are entirely uninvolved in convoluted gun-running schemes. Rated PG for “action violence,” peril, brief language and some thematic elements.