>>REVIEW
ALPHA DOG
STARRING Emile Hirsch, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake
DIRECTED BY Nick Cassavetes
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From its saccharine opening credits to its sickening final minutes, Alpha Dog is an unrealistic, unredeeming, awful, awful, awful film. Sure, the first two-thirds of the gangbangin’ kidnappin’ caper provide a few scattered laughs, but those come only unintentionally from Justin Timberlake’s (J.T.) neck tattoo (more on that later), the horrible, hackneyed plot "twists" and the racist, misogynistic, revolting pieces of dialogue. The characters are rat-scum and the point is unclear. Plainly put, this movie is just painful.
The storyline (if you’re feeling generous) revolves around the under-twenty drug ring of Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch), Frankie Ballenbacher (J.T.), and their spineless whipping boy Elvis Schmidt (Shawn Hatosy). When the swastika-sporting speed freak Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster) goes into debt with the crew, a beef is sparked, and they end up "stealing" his little brother Zack. This is around the time things stop making sense.
Anton Yelchin is fairly believable as the 15-year-old hostage having the time of his life, yet his side-plot is stupid, too. It’d be far too kind to say that this film is the drug-life equivalent of Almost Famous ("idiot wiggers have kidnapped my son!"), though there are parallel plot-points involving innocent boys and threesomes. That said, there is nothing even remotely sexy about the lifestyle showcased here. Fever Dog trumps Alpha Dog 10 times out of 10.
Foster, who was incredible as the mentally-challenged Eli in Freaks And Geeks, is appallingly over the top here – flipping out at his employer, his family and an entire house party, who he then proceeds to beat up. Hirsh, sporting hideous sideburns, seems bored and on autopilot. Timberlake does look like he’s trying, yet comes off as clueless, far too sweet to be a gangster. With angel wings on his back, the "Frankie" above his collar and some of the movie’s dumbest lines, of course he steals every scene, though that’s not much to be proud of. J.T. just needs a better agent (heard about Black Snake Moan?), but Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone must be out of their minds.
After much mulling over, I’m no closer to guessing who this movie would appeal to, and haven’t the faintest how it got made. It has no subtlety, no style, no camp and no class. Any messages it attempts to make are unclear, and there are more than a few scenes that hit like an unwanted stomach punch. This Dog should have been put to sleep. |
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