Sidney Kimmel Entertainment/A-Mark Entertainment
This is my first shot at doing a “New To...” that is not a new film in theatres or DVD release. Alpha Dog is obviously no longer talk of the town in any town (or suburban high school) , but it is new to HBO Comcast in HD and therefore, was new to me in my personal home theatre in Boston. This gives me the chance to write about films that I missed (either on purpose or on accident) in theatre and if you have already seen it or don’t care, then don’t read. But if you are like me and you have Comcast and a sweet HD home entertainment system, use these types of reviews to save yourself time while sitting on the couch with delivery on the way.
Alpha Dog may not be exactly the best film to start in this new series but it was unfortunately the only one on the list. It was not that good. Although I was not fooled that the guy who brought you The Notebook (Nick Cassavetes) would be able to produce a bomb movie about drug dealing, kidnapping and murder, I was still hopeful that the great story the film is based on would be enough to make the two hour wait for the Patriots Football Game fly by. It hardly did that.
The story centers on the true life story of Jesse James Hollywood – a kid twice featured on America’s Most Wanted for dealing and murder. Hollywood, renamed Johnny Trueblood (Emile Hirsch), gets in some serious beef with a TWEAKED out drug dealer (Jake Mazursky played by Ben Foster) who owes him money and thus, in a strange turn of events, Trueblood kidnaps his younger brother Zach (Anton Yelchin). I’ll let you be the boss of deciding whether this is a premise to a film you would like to see. The story came across poorly with terrible acting. In the end, the true-life story seemed incredibly staged and fake and could barely make me believe I was not watching an amateur remake of life.
Beware!! JT is not to blame. So don’t even think it. Yes, Justin Timberlake is in this film and yes, he is NOT an actor he is a pop star. But as with most charismatic pop stars that make the jump to film (Ludacris, LL, and even Ice T), he is not half bad. Of all the characters that did not sell the film, JT was not one of them. Seeing as 90 percent of the people most likely went to see this film to see him, they should have gone ahead and given him the part of Trueblood and let Emile Hirsch, the non-frightening thug, play, well, NOTHING. I have never been a fan.
Anyhow, this is hopefully enough to deter you from seeing this film unless the wait until the Patriots game is too much to bear. If there had been more nudity and less “I’ll kill you, dog” moments with a cast of w-w-w-white boys, I’d list this as a B-movie. Instead, it gets the old…
1 out of 4
1 comments:
this movie is the one of the best movies ever. there are so many incredible quotes that can be taken from this movie. This movie is not based on sex or nudity, and that's why there isn't many nude scenes. It is based on a true story of what happened when a drug deal goes bad. Justin Timberlake is hott, yes, but as a singer, he is a pretty good actor. Compare him to all those other pop stars who try to be actors, most of them fail.
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