Robert's Review

Based on the real-life story of Jesse James Hollywood, the youngest man ever to become one of the FBI's Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitives back in 1999, "Alpha Dog" is a story of drugs, stupidity and violence. Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), throughout his late teens, was a drug dealer of some repute. He had connections, a loyal crew and to him, it was all about making money. When Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster), a frequent customer and fellow drug dealer, came up short $1200 that he owed Johnny… there was an altercation, which started a feud between Johnny and Jake and quickly escalated out of control. During this feud, one day Johnny and his crew decided to go looking for Jake, but on their way to his place, they happened to see Jake's little brother walking down the side of the road. They quickly abducted him and went somewhere to think, wondering what to do with him. Do they ransom him off, do they hurt him, do they let him go, what?  Johnny came up with a plan to trade the kid back if Jake came up with the money he owed. 

In the meantime, Jake's little brother was actually having a pretty good time. He'd hated living at home under his parent's rule, and so he really enjoyed hanging out, doing drugs and getting drunk with Johnny's crew. Not to mention that some of the girls really took a liking to him and adoringly called him "Stolen Boy." As the situation continued, Frankie Ballenbacher (Justin Timberlake) took the kid under his wing and practically made him a part of their crew… taking him to parties, giving him free drugs and booze, telling all his friends about him, etc. Soon after, negotiations between Johnny and Jake didn't work out and now Johnny and his crew were looking at life in prison if they got caught, so Johnny decided that the kid needed to be killed, so that nobody would ever find him or be able to pin his kidnapping on them. But, would Frankie and the other crew members actually do what Johnny was asking? After all, they really liked the kid and didn't want to harm him. 

On to my review -- The premise behind "Alpha Dog" sounded really intriguing and with supporting roles from big name stars like Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone, I'd expected to see really great things from this movie. However, I was incredibly disappointed by what turned out to be a haphazard party/stoner movie, riddled with "suck my c***" jokes and an overabundance of dialogue filler in the form of everyone's favorite 4-letter words and expletive phrases. The acting was just OK, but many of the roles seemed miscast and the drama was ultimately uninteresting. Justin Timberlake actually gave a pretty respectable performance, as did the kid, but that's about it. Worst of all, the camera work and visual editing were simply terrible. Some of the scenes were out of focus, making it hard to pay attention, plus the director decided to use a LOT of split-screens, but not very effectively. Split-screens were designed to show multiple characters in multiple places or events, but in "Alpha Dog," the director threw out all convention and used them just because he felt like it, often showing the exact same people, places and events in split-screen. One split-screen in particular demonstrates this idiotic usage perfectly… there's a scene where the kid's parents are crying and there is a split-screen showing it from the exact same angle, but from different distances… one camera is about 5 feet away and the other is about 30 feet away… but it's the EXACT same angle, characters, event, and everything! I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing… it was perhaps the biggest visual blunder in movie history! 

In closing, I honestly feel that this movie should have been done as a work of fiction, not based on a true story. The idea behind "Alpha Dog" has merit, but this screenplay, based on the real-life story of Jesse James Hollywood and his crew, is completely uninteresting. 

All in all, I'd give this movie 1 STAR. Re-watch value: NONE

Inspired by true events, Alpha Dog follows 3 fateful days when the lives of a group of Southern California teens suddenly dead-ended.  Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) controls the drugs on the streets of his neighborhood.  Wherever Johnny goes, the parties, the girls, and his loyal gang follow.  However when a he's double-crossed over a missing deal money by the hotheaded Jake (Ben Foster), Johnny and his gang impulsively kidnap Jake's little brother, Zack (Anton Yelcin), holding him as a marker and heading to Palm Springs.  Zack however starts to grow on everyone and soon they get used to having him around, and Zack enjoys an illicit summer fantasy of drinking, girls, and new experiences.  But as the clock starts to tick down Johnny realizes that they can't just give the kid back and everything starts spiraling out of control.  The movie based on the true story of the life of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer who became one of the youngest men ever to be on the FBI's most wanted list. 

Rob and I were both excited to see this movie and we were almost equally disappointed in the movie.  The story, even though following the actual events, had some cinematography issues: the use of split screens to show the same shot (kinda pointless), the camera angles made it had to follow the story, and the constant interruption from the "interviewer" during the movie.  I also thought the story was lacking any real build up of character development... such as in the true story "Johnny" and "Zack" were best friends. They grew up together, played baseball, were in scouts, same school and shared birthdays. However, the movie fails miserably to build that relationship.  With all of the issues I had with the movie, the one good thing to come out of it was Justin Timberlake. I am not a big fan of his to begin with, but he did a respectable performance. I was really impressed.  I am sorry to say that Justin's performance was not enough to make me rate this movie very high. 

Overall Rating 2 Stars. Re-Watch Value: Low (Netflix if you must see it). 

Trivia: To prepare for his role in this movie, actor Ben Foster asked one of his friends who was an ex-crystal meth addict for guidance. The friend introduced him to a group of people who gave Foster an all-access pass into the lifestyle.

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