On A List of Movie Reviews
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Alpha Dog (2006)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
6/21
6/21:
While watching Alpha Dog, I didn't know a thing about the real case until afterwards.
Yeah, Jesse James Hollywood was in the news back then, but I predictably didn't care about him. How I came to the film
this late is somebody suggested it while I looked up info on Bully. It's true that
they're similar, but Larry Clark did it so much better, especially on the gritty side.
At first, I thought the acting was corny and the dialogue terrible. If that's how they spoke, then so be it which is a strong
indicator of low IQ. These idiots are also weak wannabes, and I can come up with some people who can easily beat the living shit out
of them. But somehow, the movie is watchable like a bad train wreck with an expected ending.
Only Justin Timberlake impresses me; his acting craft keeps improving all the time. The same can be said for Ben Foster who's
clearly over the top, but his on-screen time is so short that a lot of potential has gone untapped. Everybody else is more or
less okay. I'm surprised to see Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone looking old by now.
All the names have been changed, but the story is still the same in terms of what happened in Southern California during the summer
of 2000. Johnny Truelove is Jesse James Hollywood, Frankie Ballenbacher is Jesse Rugge, Elvis Schmidt is Ryan Hoyt, Keith
Stratten is Graham Pressley, and Zack Mazursky is Nicholas Markowitz. The debt was $36,000, not $1,200 (gee...such a puny sum).
Only Hollywood (who fled for five years before he was caught in Saquarema, Brazil, which happened after the filming was
completed, hence the new ending) and Hoyt are in prison for life while Pressley and Rugge got out in 2007 and 2013,
respectively, after serving seven and eleven years. Believe it or not, Anton Yelchin, the Russian actor who played the victim,
died in 2016 at age 27 when his Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backwards, crushing his chest against the pillar and security fence.
All in all, Alpha Dog isn't a well-directed picture but contains enough energy to grab my attention from start to finish.