Review of Alpha Dog (2006) by Shane V — 23 Dec 2009

For those of you who are fans of Emile Hirsch, or possibly Justin Timberlake, here is my long overdue review of Alpha Dog.

Alpha Dog tells the tail of a group of teenagers who end up involving an entire neighborhood in a drug debt gone bad. After kidnapping the young brother of an un-paying client, a group of young "gangsters" of sorts must deal with the consequences of their actions.

That's the best description I could give without giving away too much. Fantastic performance by Justin Timberlake (surprisingly). Emile Hirsch, another fine young actor, also turned in a good performance. Of course, being a movie about teenagers, the word "fuck" is used at least twenty times per scene. This can show two things: #1 lack of imagination in writing #2 Teenagers are illiterate. In style, it tries to be a gangster movie with all the gears turning together, if not always voluntarily. But as I said, the repetitive speech and constant use of drugs dumbs down any great ideas this movie may have had. Usually people say "Really? That was based on a true story?" and we can say yes, and they can say "That explains the realism" or something close to it. But we all know that the Hollywood machine churns out every original idea with a *little* extra edge, or darkness, or seriousness. That is clearly evident with this movie. Of course most of these are minor factors. Next is the waterslide-type of ride the film takes us on. Every time a new character is introduced, we think "oh, they'll serve some purpose" but they never do. Only 3 characters are consistent, and they're the main characters. Everyone else just seems to flow by them with almost no focus. But the one last thing that makes me mad, is the MASSIVE under-use of Bruce Willis. He's damn good actor, and he deserved more than the 5 minutes of screen time he got. The whole thing makes for a good story, but like it's characters, this film just tragically struggles to be the cool dawg on the block. Alpha Dog receives a 6 out of 10.