Max

A Texas teenager (Josh Wiggins) and his parents (Thomas Haden Church, Lauren Graham) adopt the traumatized service dog of the family's oldest son, a marine who's been killed in Afghanistan (Robbie Amell). The boy senses that somehow, his brother's supposed best friend (Luke Kleintank) is at the root of the dog's trauma. The script by Sheldon Lettich and director Boaz Yakin doesn't exactly hold water—it hinges on weapon-running but doesn't explain how the weapons got from Afghanistan to Texas—and Yakin gets amateurish performances from some of the supporting case (e.g., Dejon LaQuake as Wiggins' best friend). Still, if you're a sucker for a-boy-and-his-dog movies (and who isn't?), this one is a passable enough example of the genre—though it'll hardly make you forget Lassie Come Home or Old Yeller. J.L.