Posted: 01/13/2007

Alpha Dog

(2007)

by Hank Yuloff

WILL SOMEONE TAKE THE REGGAE CAP OFF THE WHITE BOYS FROM THE VALLEY AND SHOW THEM A MIRROR?!

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. When I said I would review this piece of cinematic dog excrement, I jokingly said I was “taking one for the team.” Sixty minutes into this 117 minute “film” I was ready be the one they killed to just stop the pain behind my eyes.

Alpha Dog is the inspired-by-true-events story of Jesse James Hollywood, a drug dealer whobecame one of the youngest men ever to be on the FBI’s most wanted list. In this film, he is called Johnny Truelove. Mr. Truelove is a drug dealer and is owed $1200 by someone he distributes through (Jake Mazursky, played by Ben Foster from Hostage, The Punisher) and decides to hold Mazursky’s brother Zack (played by Anton Yelchin from Huff) hostage until he gets paid.

Testosterone being what it is and their intelligence level being in direct reverse proportion, things get out of hand really quickly.

Truelove’s posse takes Zack to their Palm Springs hideouts (the homes of their parents) while the police and Jake search for them. When Truelove checks in with his attorney, he finds out that kidnapping can bring a life sentence he thinks that he might have to just make Zack disappear. At that point, I thought, “Hey, dork, what do you think you get for killing someone?” But what the heck… this was inspired by real events.

Making up Truelove’s posse are the worst group of acting performances this side of an ‘N Sync video. Oddly enough, Justin Timberlake was involved in both endeavors. I wonder if Mr. Timberlake knows how bad an actor he is and just decided to laugh all the way to the bank? OR, he really thinks he has talent. I am hoping its the former because when you cover his chicken leg body with fake tattoos, he just looks and sounds ridiculous. Hey Justin, if a script has you saying, “Yo, dog!” you should run the other way. You are not black. You are not from a bad neighborhood. You did not grow up on the mean streets of Memphis, Tennessee, and The Mickey Mouse Club was probably your high point. Shawn Hatosy (Factory Girl, The Cooler) needs to get a role where he isn’t an idiot—just to prove he has a brain. Same thing for Amanda Seyfried, who seems to be stuck in her Mean Girls dumb-blonde stigma.

And as long as I am mentioning odd things… I totally could not believe Emile Hirsch as the head of a drug dealing gang. His bio lists him as 5’ 7”, but all the women in the movie tower over him. He must know he is not as tough as he thinks, because he puts on a front that we are given privy to seeing. Hirsch was cute as the kid who has a porn star move into the neighborhood (The Girl Next Door), but that cuteness did not translate to “bad ass” in this film. Completely unconvincing. And how Harry Dean Stanton (Pretty in Pink) got mixed up in this as Truelove’s grandfather is beyond me. Must not be lots of work available for character actors who play a really good drunk.

There is one and only one reason and redeeming feature in this movie. To watch Ben Foster. He is amazing. You know he is a guy on the edge and when he snaps it is scary, amusing (cause he is not kicking your ass) and mesmerizing all at once. There are four or five scenes that Foster can put into his promotion reel which will get him lots of other work. If you like white boys who think they are “ethnic” go ahead and see this for his acting.

Nick Cassavetes directed and wrote this miserable movie—very unexpected, since his last three projects were The Notebook, John Q, and She’s So Lovely. I guess we all have bad days. Some days we are the Alpha Dog… and some days that dog pisses all over us.

Alpha Dog is an early contender for Worst Movie of 2007.

Hank Yuloff is a film critic living in Los Angeles.

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