Max and his “handler’ Kyle (Robbie Amell) are in the Marines. Max is a highly-trained military dog helping the Marines to find a large cache of weapons in Afghanistan. After the successful raid, Kyle and his friend Tyler, are called into command's office because of missing confiscated weapons. Kyle realizes that his friend might be mixed in with the situation. Soon afterwards, Kyle is killed in an ambush and Max is sent back to the United States. Unfortunately, the dog is inconsolable and will not follow orders. The military is about to put Max down, however, they contact the family first. When the family arrives, Max is instantly drawn to Justin (Josh Wiggins), accurately sensing that Justin is Kyle’s brother.

Tyler returns stateside claiming a medical discharge. He visits the Wincotts, and discovers they have adopted Max. It’s said that a dog can always tell a bad person and Max is definitely on-point with shady Tyler.

At first, Max won’t let Justin touch him, however with the help of the feisty cousin of his best friend, he starts on the road to bonding with and training Max.

Great movie moments:

Max in the funeral scene is extremely moving, even a dog-hater would fail to not be touched by this poignant moment.

Josh Wiggins is excellent in his role from troubled to "save the day" teen.

Thomas Haden Church (Wings and Spiderman 3) and Lauren Graham (Gilmore Girls and Evan Almighty) are decent in their roles as Justin’s parents. As a fan of the television show Wings, however, it’s difficult not to expect Church to say something funny and nonsensical as he did in the T.V. show.

The movie pays tribute to the precision-trained military dogs in service, however, since the bulk of the action takes place out of the military, it falls a bit short on honoring the many dogs in service.

Not so great movie moments:

They take what could have been a great film about military dogs and water it down into a predictable story-line of "troubled teen meets man’s best friend".

No spoilers, but the end is just as predictable yet it is a feel good movie worth watching.

Overall, I give the movie 3 out of 5 stars.

Details:

Director: Boaz Yakin

Rating: PG (some violence, but not too disturbing until near the end of the movie).

Run time: 111 minutes

This movie is available on Amazon.

Max
I rented this movie with my own funds from the video store. I have not been compensated for this review.