There is an easy recipe for movies’ success, especially in high cinema seasons: a simple plot, plenty of comedy and nice songs. These usually constitute the modus operandi if filmmakers want to make the grade.
This is exactly what Esabet el-Max (The Max Gang) offers. But, is this really only what viewers need?
The film, which is co-written by Amgad el-Sharkawy and Rami Ali, marks Hossam Soliman’sdebut as a director. It brings a group of popular actors together, including Ahmed Fahmy; Ruby;Lebleba, and Hatem Salah.
The Max Gang imitates the idea of the American movie We’re the Millers (2013). The stories of both films revolve around a criminal tasked with a difficult cross-border smuggling operation. This criminal resorts to a trick: creating a fake family to travel with the contraband on a tour bus, based on a strong assumption that police will not search a bus with a family inside it.
In the American movie, the smuggled goods are a drug shipment while the family crosses the border to Mexico. In the Egyptian movie, the smuggled goods are an ancient mummy and the family crosses Egypt’s border into Sudan.
Also in We’re the Millers, the leading character,Rose (Jennifer Aniston), is a striptease dancer, while in The Max Gang, the heroine, (Ruby), is a singer who performs at poor popular weddings.
However, The Max Gang tries to add new details to distinguish itself from the original film. But these additions create more comedy sketches than important details.
For example, the main idea is that a fake family travels with contraband, but, unlike the US movie, this idea is only introduced at the beginning of the movie when they face a police ambush.
The family does not face any other challenges during the journey. In fact, all the events that the protagonists go through in their journey do not pose any challenge to them as a fake family. In the US movie, the main focus is on exposing fake feelings between the family members, engendering laughter and humour.
In The Max Gang, however, the journey proceeds in another way – the easy recipe – based on hit-and-runs, car chases and redundant comedy sketches that sometimes depend on bullying the appearance, mocking segments of people, or making unfunny jokes inspired by social media.
This exaggeration in sketches made the end of the movie not convincing. The end includes a budding emotional bond between the members of the gang, making them feel a true family. This happens because each one of them either suffers from loneliness, homelessness, or loss.
When they dealt with each other through the family context, they feel the change and want to have this family for real.
This conclusion works easily in the US moviebecause the dramatic structure is built in every situation to reach this end, but in The Max Gang, it appears intrusive.
Despite all odds, The Max Gang still offers comedy, good acting and nice songs by Ruby. It can be an entertaining movie for the weekend.
