Alpha Dog tells the story of a group of young, suburban gangsters. They think they're big, bad tough guys. They're not. They're just stupid little punks. Emphasis on "stupid". One fine day the leader of this group of morons decides, on the spur of the moment, to kidnap somebody. These idiots probably couldn't pull off shoplifting a pack of gum so it is safe to say that kidnapping proves well beyond their criminal capabilities. Things spiral out of control. None of the morons knows what to do so they just run around saying bleep this, bleep that, bleep everything. If you take out all uses of a certain four-letter word which starts with "f" and ends with "k" this would essentially be a silent movie. What we have here is a bunch of moronic degenerate lowlifes in a rather moronic movie.
The characters are completely distasteful but that doesn't necessarily doom the movie to failure. Amateurish acting, directing, writing and photography...that's the combination which sinks the movie. Then when you add in the fact that you'll inevitably hate every significant character save one what you end up with is one terrible, depressing movie. The only actor to come out of this mess with any kind of credit is Anton Yelchin who plays the young kidnapping victim. He gives a believable, endearing performance. Others are not so fortunate. Emile Hirsch makes hardly any impression at all as the gang leader. Which is better than can be said for the actors playing the rest of the bad guys. They're all rather terrible. Shawn Hatosy is entirely unconvincing in his part. Ben Foster goes ridiculously over the top in playing a strung-out Jewish guy...with a swastika tattoo. Then there's Justin Timberlake. He actually has one scene near the end in which he's quite good. It's as if an acting coach suddenly turned up on the set that day. Other than that? Dear Lord is he bad. The girls in the movie...Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, Amber Heard, Dominique Swain...seem to be there for purely decorative purposes. You also get Sharon Stone, who at one point dons the most ridiculous looking fatsuit you've ever seen. And Bruce Willis is in the movie too. I have no idea why. Perhaps he lost a bar bet with the director. The movie is pretty much a failure all the way around. Terribly written, terribly acted, terribly paced...mind-numbingly boring at times. It's a sad story about one poor boy surrounded by a bunch of reprehensible losers. The saddest thing of all is that the movie is based on a true story. This actually happened. These miserably stupid, vile, disgusting people actually exist in this world. Makes you lose a little faith in humanity.
The characters are completely distasteful but that doesn't necessarily doom the movie to failure. Amateurish acting, directing, writing and photography...that's the combination which sinks the movie. Then when you add in the fact that you'll inevitably hate every significant character save one what you end up with is one terrible, depressing movie. The only actor to come out of this mess with any kind of credit is Anton Yelchin who plays the young kidnapping victim. He gives a believable, endearing performance. Others are not so fortunate. Emile Hirsch makes hardly any impression at all as the gang leader. Which is better than can be said for the actors playing the rest of the bad guys. They're all rather terrible. Shawn Hatosy is entirely unconvincing in his part. Ben Foster goes ridiculously over the top in playing a strung-out Jewish guy...with a swastika tattoo. Then there's Justin Timberlake. He actually has one scene near the end in which he's quite good. It's as if an acting coach suddenly turned up on the set that day. Other than that? Dear Lord is he bad. The girls in the movie...Olivia Wilde, Amanda Seyfried, Amber Heard, Dominique Swain...seem to be there for purely decorative purposes. You also get Sharon Stone, who at one point dons the most ridiculous looking fatsuit you've ever seen. And Bruce Willis is in the movie too. I have no idea why. Perhaps he lost a bar bet with the director. The movie is pretty much a failure all the way around. Terribly written, terribly acted, terribly paced...mind-numbingly boring at times. It's a sad story about one poor boy surrounded by a bunch of reprehensible losers. The saddest thing of all is that the movie is based on a true story. This actually happened. These miserably stupid, vile, disgusting people actually exist in this world. Makes you lose a little faith in humanity.