Column: Don't mess with 'Alpha Dog'
Published Jan. 19, 2007
The producers of "Alpha Dog" would like you to know that the film about a botched kidnapping over a $1,200 drug loan is based on a true story. How do I know this? It could be the opening with grainy home movie footage of the kid who will later be kidnapped as "Over the Rainbow" tinkles in the background. It could be the gimmicky use of a fake documentary framing story, in which Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone humiliate themselves trying to emote to an unseen interviewer, which is thrown in and out of the movie without rhyme or reason. Or it could be the running tally of "witnesses" to the crime that is helpfully updated in the corner of the screen. Unlike a real documentary, though, there's little elucidating about "Alpha Dog."
The gritty and realistic drama follows: Johnny Truelove, a young drug dealer with an extensive and interchangeable posse of Federlinian white gangbangers in plaid shorts and wifebeaters, kidnaps the teenaged brother of a junkie who owes him money. It's supposed to be a simple kidnapping, if such a thing exists, but something goes unsurprisingly wrong and his good-hearted lieutenant, Frankie Ballenbacher — Justin Timberlake, who is unexpectedly solid in the film's best role — has to choose between his own life and the life of the innocent captive.
Unfortunately, in its awkwardly insistent desire to be gritty and realistic, "Alpha Dog" hits upon the truth that these real gangsters — of the over-sexed, wealthy and perpetually stoned variety — aren't interesting.
Most Tarantino wannabes go too far by making their characters too peculiar, too twitchy and witty or ironically witless. Nick Cassavetes, who wrote and directed the movie, has somehow fallen into the opposite trap.
In one scene, Timberlake's character suggests they let the kid go, so the cops don't hound them and they aren't caught "running around like a bunch of Chinamen." He doesn't bother explaining the analogy, which would be funny in a "He said that?" sort of way if it were a real stereotype. Truelove, supposedly intelligent enough to amass a drug-dealing empire, replies, "That's what I like about you; you're smarter than me." Crime films, like last year's "The Departed," are interesting because the characters are compelling, unlike real criminals. Cassavetes missed this point completely.
In the last half-hour, when Timberlake's forced character development and the demand for gritty realism come to a terrible head, the movie more or less becomes a snuff film. A character we don't see enough of to care about begs and pleads for his life over and over and after about 10 minutes he's shot about 40 times. End of story. End of character development. I left the theater feeling dirty for having watched it.
This movie doesn't seem to want to be art, or entertainment or a documentary, it just wants to cause a reaction. Mission accomplished.