Published: January 26, 2007 10:58 am         

‘Alpha Dog’ a great movie about bad people

4 out of 5 leaves

When a guy hears that a movie was directed by the same person who gave America the tear-jerker “The Notebook,” he’s likely to not give the film a second thought.

In the case of “Alpha Dog,” go against that instinct.

The film is based on a real-life murder back in 1999 involving Jesse James Hollywood, who was captured in 2005 in Brazil and will be put on trial in the not-too-distant future. The names have changed (in the movie, Hollywood is named Johnny Truelove) but the story is the same.

Truelove (Emile Hirsch) is a drug dealer who spends most of his time the way I presume any drug dealer would: playing video games with his boys and making out with women. As it turns out, a couple of his boys — Elvis (Shawn Hatosy) and Jake (Ben Foster) owe him money, but are unable to pay. So each has to provide collateral. In Jake’s case, it’s his little brother Zach (Anton Yelchin), and in Elvis’ case, it’s a favor.

So Zach is kidnapped by arguably the nicest kidnappers ever. They let him watch television, play video games and engage in threesomes with high school girls in a swimming pool — things most adolescent boys want to do anyway. Naturally, Zach does not feel to be in any great danger, choosing to “ride it out, see what happens.” Poor, naive Zach.

One of Johnny’s henchmen, Frankie (played pretty well by Justin Timberlake — as anyone who’s watched him on “Saturday Night Live” can attest, JT has some acting chops) actually befriends Zach. This is the point where the audience sees the dilemma coming like a speeding freight train. Throughout the whole movie, you know something bad is about to happen to Zach. You just don’t know when or where.

The great thing about this movie is that the characters tell the story, not the actors. It’s highly unlikely anyone has heard of any of the primary actors (except for JT, but he’s not famous for his acting) and the heavy hitters — Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone — stay in the background, letting the youngsters shine.

Director Nick Cassavetes does a terrific job of using effects to set the tone for the film. The beginning of the film shows home movies of a small child while “Over the Rainbow” is sung in the background. It’s cute if you don’t know the backstory, completely chilling if you do. Plus the whole movie is told as a documentary, with each scene showing location and identifying “witnesses,” which also gives away that something really bad is about to go down.

If this guy Cassavetes is so good, maybe I should give “The Notebook” a try. Then again, maybe not.

“Alpha Dog” is rated R. It has a running time of 1 hour and 57 minutes.

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justin.cripe@goshennews.com