Alpha Dog

This movie was supposed to come out last year at this time. I remember reading a story about it a year before that, so, more or less, I have been waiting to see this movie for two years. This movie could very easily have let me down because I had it so built up in my head. However, it did not in the least. It was well worth the wait. It's the sort of movie that sucks you in, entrances you, and then hits you over the head with a baseball bat. It's full of characters who are not too likeable, yet we somehow feel for most of them because they are free in ways that most people are not. Nick Cassavetes (who follows up The Notebook with this movie!) really does a wonderful job capturing the essence of this true story. The way he puts you into the prospective of what happened, the way you see what happened as though you are actually experiencing it yourself, is absolutely brilliant.
The story is true, as most people know by now. In an interview, Cassavetes said that this is as true to what happened as could possibly be. The only thing that he changed were the names. So, instead of Jesse James Hollywood, Emile Hirsch plays Johnny Truelove, a young drug dealer who sells various drugs to most of his teenage friends in the sunny, barren wasteland of San Gabriel, California. He's got a group of drug addicted, tough guy friends including Justin Timberlake as Frankie and Shawn Hatosy as Elvis. Ben Foster and his character of Jake Mazursky is sort of the catalyst for everything that happens in this film. It seems Jake owes Johnny money and after a few days of back and forth retaliation between the two (breaking windows, stealing televisions, using the living room carpet as a toilet...) things really spiral out of control when Johnny decides it would be a good idea to kidnap Jake's innocent and sweet little brother Zack (Anton Yelchin) who they happen upon en route to Palm Springs for Fiesta Weekend. They bring little Zack along for the ride and he doesn't mind so much because he gets to play video games, drink and smoke, have sex with two girls and all around feel like one of the crowd. If you've read anything about the true story, then you know what is going to happen next. Still, even if you see it coming a mile away, it still knocks you out of your seat. The relationship between Timberlake's Frankie and Yelchin's Zack is really the backbone of the film. They genuinely become almost friends and that final scene with the two of them will easily break your heart.
There's a mood and energy, a style that Cassavettes so easily captures and portrays that makes this film so far removed from any cliched studio product geared toward the teenybopper set. The film feels honest and genuine and has a lot of unexpected heart and soul, and that makes all the difference in the world. Cassavettes also does a lot of creative things in the movie including interviews to make it feel more like a documentary than a drama, split screen camera tricks, a run down of the dates and times that everything went down, and the part I loved the most, a running count of all the witnesses who saw the kidnapped boy over the three day period. To say that these kids are stupid is a huge understatement. But that's the point. They are a bunch of drugged out, tripping young kids who think they rule the world, because in a strange sort of way, they do. They think they can do anything they want and get away with it. This is, essentially, a story about a group of people who make one bad decision after another until it spirals so far out of control they have no idea how to get out of the mess they created. And, of course, they choose the worst possible way to try to get out of the situation.
The performances are really most impressive. This is a sprawling cast with a ton of wonderful performances. It's nearly impossible to pinpoint any one person specifically because I don't really think there was a star of the movie. This is ensemble casting at it's best. There are wonderful performances from Shawn Hatosy, Emile Hirsch, Chris Marquette, Sharon Stone, Dominique Swain, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Willis, and Anton Yelchin (whose last few moments on-screen are gut wrenching). Everyone just really does a great job. Justin Timberlake is the most surprising, of course. Surprise, surprise: the guy can act! Forget everything you think about him, all your preconceived notions of the boy bander or whatever. He crackles whenever he's on screen and he has all the right ingredients for a stellar acting career: charisma, screen presence and natural acting talent. But, the standout performance, for me anyway, was from Ben Foster. I remember watching a documentary a few years back about meth addicts and Ben Foster just nails it. He's so on spot in every single scene. He's almost frightening to watch. He's stunning and terrifying. I never thought that little Tucker James from Flash Forward would scare me so much but he does. He's just simply wonderful. He gives one of those rare performances that you won't soon forget.
Grade: A