Alpha Dog tells an impulsive, thoughtless act. Based on the true story of the Jesse James Hollywood story, Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) and his cronies don't know what to do with their new charge: one moment they stuff him in the closet and duct tape his mouth, and the next, he and Truelove's de facto second-in-command Frankie (Justin Timberlake) are playing X-Box. Zack is unfazed — on one level, he's enjoying the adventure (in what must ultimately be Alpha Dog's saddest moment, he asserts that he sees it as "just another story to tell his grandkids")
Anton Yelchin virtually runs away with the film. Director Nick Cassavetes throws Zack into an exaggerated, flamboyant universe, his brother Jake is unaware that he's taken hostage by a bunch of wannabe Tony Montanas. Yelchin is remarkable in the way he grounds Alpha Dog in reality. Certain scenes stand entirely alone. Zack's encounter with his parents on the stairs, the subtlety of their interaction, his fully believable and familiar frustration. There's nothing else like it in the movie. Late in the film, Yelchin is given a hugely difficult scene where Zack's fantasy abruptly becomes a nightmare, and he nails it, converting Zack's ordinariness from something faintly amusing to something powerful and terrifying. Justin Timberlake is also very impressive in this scene.
This also works because of the extent to which Zack is the story's moral compass. For as long as he likes and trusts his new friends, the kidnapping really does seem like fun and games, and the tone of the film shifts along with his perceptions. From this perspective, his relationship with Frankie, while touching in its way, is the ultimate betrayal, and his desperate appeals to his "friend" in the scene I mentioned earlier are one part of Alpha Dog I can't seem to get out of my mind.
The other half of the film, as you may have guessed, focuses on the misadventures of the kidnappers, and here Cassavetes runs into some problems. To his great credit, his screenplay takes some real stabs at complexity: though seeming every bit the amateur gangstas, Johnny Truelove and Co. openly mock a gangsta rap music video; despite the casual misogyny constantly bandied about, Truelove himself is portrayed early on, and somewhat bizarrely, as a staunch monogamist. Then there's the issue of the parents, who are either corrupt, debauched or clueless; Cassavetes seems to blame them for allowing this to happen, and that seems about right.
In the end, though, it's not quite convincing. Truelove is simply vile, a coward and a liar. He's not allowed to function as a villain, and Emile Hirsch doesn't have much to work with. The film resists the inevitable conclusion that these guys are just losers, insisting on a view of their activities that's much more exotic than they merit, and at a certain point threatening to seem silly. Including a lot of coarse language and some frightening scenes of violence, Alpha Dog can give you a sense of disturbance once completed watching the film.
Anton Yelchin virtually runs away with the film. Director Nick Cassavetes throws Zack into an exaggerated, flamboyant universe, his brother Jake is unaware that he's taken hostage by a bunch of wannabe Tony Montanas. Yelchin is remarkable in the way he grounds Alpha Dog in reality. Certain scenes stand entirely alone. Zack's encounter with his parents on the stairs, the subtlety of their interaction, his fully believable and familiar frustration. There's nothing else like it in the movie. Late in the film, Yelchin is given a hugely difficult scene where Zack's fantasy abruptly becomes a nightmare, and he nails it, converting Zack's ordinariness from something faintly amusing to something powerful and terrifying. Justin Timberlake is also very impressive in this scene.
This also works because of the extent to which Zack is the story's moral compass. For as long as he likes and trusts his new friends, the kidnapping really does seem like fun and games, and the tone of the film shifts along with his perceptions. From this perspective, his relationship with Frankie, while touching in its way, is the ultimate betrayal, and his desperate appeals to his "friend" in the scene I mentioned earlier are one part of Alpha Dog I can't seem to get out of my mind.
The other half of the film, as you may have guessed, focuses on the misadventures of the kidnappers, and here Cassavetes runs into some problems. To his great credit, his screenplay takes some real stabs at complexity: though seeming every bit the amateur gangstas, Johnny Truelove and Co. openly mock a gangsta rap music video; despite the casual misogyny constantly bandied about, Truelove himself is portrayed early on, and somewhat bizarrely, as a staunch monogamist. Then there's the issue of the parents, who are either corrupt, debauched or clueless; Cassavetes seems to blame them for allowing this to happen, and that seems about right.
In the end, though, it's not quite convincing. Truelove is simply vile, a coward and a liar. He's not allowed to function as a villain, and Emile Hirsch doesn't have much to work with. The film resists the inevitable conclusion that these guys are just losers, insisting on a view of their activities that's much more exotic than they merit, and at a certain point threatening to seem silly. Including a lot of coarse language and some frightening scenes of violence, Alpha Dog can give you a sense of disturbance once completed watching the film.