Dir. Nick Cassavetes, US, 2007, 117mins
Cast: Justin Timberlake, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Shawn Hatosy, Anton Yelchin
Review by Paul Murphy
‘Youth is wasted on the young’, a saying no doubt coined by an older generation, possibly with an axe to grind and a mountain of regrets. Not so, shout countless rebellious teens the world over, we know who we are, we’re the most important part of society and demand to be treated as such. We’ve all been there, slamming doors, shouting, screaming and sulking our way through pre-pubescent rules and regulations, “I didn’t ask to be born”, and “You’re not the boss of me”, dripping forth from our still innocent mouths. However whilst our tirades were mostly venting, with nothing really resulting from our weak threats, what would happen if such surliness and seeming invincibility remained unchecked? What would really happen if teenagers did get what they always wanted; to be set free, and allowed do what they pleased?
Southern California and all is well. For Johnny Truelove, (Hirsch) life is good. He rules his crew through put downs, due debts, fear, parties and a whole lot of weed. Kept in constant supply by his Dad (Willis) knee deep in organised crime, Johnny is the alpha dog round these parts, and boy does he show it. Into his perfect set up comes Jake (a magnificent Foster) an unhinged small time dealer, who older than Truelove, with time in prison behind him, owes him money on a deal gone bad. Being stiffed is not high up on Johnny’s plans, but being put down by a kid with all front and no balls ain’t high on Jake’s plans either. What starts off as a verbal spat quickly escalates into a violent stalemate, as Johnny’s impulsive kidnapping of Jake’s younger brother Zack (Yelchin), to hold as a marker, slowly turns Johnny’s fledgling gangster games into a horrifying reality with very adult consequences indeed.
Inspired by actual events and by research based on stories and mores of Cassavettes’ kid’s peers, Alpha Dog continues the director’s unrelenting fascination with all things human. As always, and much like his father, Cassavettes’ camera doesn’t judge, rather he presents a world, a way of life and the personalities that inhabit this culture. On the surface one could see Alpha Dog as a film about kids and gangs who, mimicking thug-street life and popular American culture, play at being hard, all the while being cosseted by their affluent and liberal upbringing. However, Cassavettes goes much deeper than this, distinguishing the role of parental control, or the lack thereof, in these kids’ lives. With little or no parental guidance, the kids are let loose, left to their own devices, with their parents’ bank balances as a measure of parental influence in their lives. As such, the end result can only be dire and both parent and child are equally responsible. The ironic thing is that the most mature of all the characters is that of Zack, the 16-year old ‘stolen boy’ as the girls dub him, who, having the weekend of his life, constantly tries to do the right thing by his brother, as he misguidedly thinks that his acquiescence will help sort Jake’s problems out, all the while blissfully unaware of the maelstrom that’s closing in around him.
The performances in the movie are pitch perfect, every single actor is perfectly cast in an extraordinary ensemble piece where the whole really becomes greater than the individual parts. In a film, which reads as a who’s who of young upcoming talent, special mention must go to Timberlake for the obvious reasons of the ‘another singer tries acting’ begrudgery we are oft subjected to. A revelation, he excels as charming, likeable Frankie, who, after befriending and hanging out with Zack, becomes the one character who re-assures both him, and us that everything will turn out ok, only to slowly realise that he is in way over his head and is powerless to but watch the happy ending he wants quickly become a distant memory. Timberlake handles his descent with believability, assurance and ease. He truly is a talent to watch out for.
With echoes of Larry Clarke’s Kids and Bully squarely in the foreground, Alpha Dog unfortunately suffers in comparison with its very weak, and too-nicely framed up ending. The powerhouse of tension, character, and impending doom, that was superbly built up was let down by 15 minutes of a very weak, boring and convoluted ending. By wrapping the story up with a dull subplot of Johnny’s seeming escape from the consequences of his crime, and using documentary-esque interviews to comment on the aftermath, Cassavettes unfortunately loses his way, which is a great pity. Coupled with this is the criminal waste of the characters that he spent such time and effort establishing, we never get to see the consequences of the violence, on the main protagonists in any real way. Rather, we get the standard freeze frame with text, which robs the film of its emotional complexity, and true power.
Cassavettes has made a flawed classic then. A worthy entry into responsible filmmaking that shows youthful peer pressure at its most extreme, Alpha Dog is a film that is well worth seeing, but like the characters it observes, ultimately lets us down at the end.
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