CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 01/12/07

A Good Dog, But Needs Training

By peter clines

Alpha Dog tells the mostly true tale of a young drug lord in southern California, his circle of friends, and how a series of bad decisions slowly destroyed their fledgling empire and led to the death of an innocent teenager. While it has a strong story and strong characters, it's plagued with pervasive structure problems that keep it from being an overall strong film as well.

Alpha Dog

Nick Cassavetes (also directed)

Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch) is a just-barely-fictitious young adult druglord in the outer suburbs of Los Angeles, part of a family of lifetime criminals overseen by his father, Sonny (Bruce Willis). Unable to collect on a debt owed to him by Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster), a frustrated Johnny impulsively snatches the debtor's little brother Zack (Anton Yelchin) off the street. Once he calms down, however, he realizes he had no idea what to do with his all-too-willing bargaining piece. Excited and trusting, the teen treats his abduction like a vacation, bonding with one of Johnny's lieutenants, Frankie (Justin Timberlake), as the days wear on. Frankie is convinced Zack will never finger them for kidnapping, and would even cover for them, but the young kingpin is terrified of the possibility of life in prison. Alas, as news of the kidnapping spreads, the paranoid and rash Johnny finds himself drawn to the one solution he knows will eliminate all his worries—eliminating his hostage.

Based on the real life of FBI's Most Wanted fugitive and drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood (and close enough so that his lawyers tried to bar the film from release before his upcoming murder trial), the screenplay by writer-director Nick Cassavetes (Blow) is a collection of bad life choices and decisions that pile up and compound one another. Alpha Dog is not just about a bunch of white kids who've decided to live a gangsta life of crime, but about their ongoing inability to make a good judgment call. It's remarkably telling that one of the first lines of the film is Sonny Truelove blaming the entire incident on bad parenting, drawing immediate attention to the fact that in this story about kids gone bad, there's not a single adult role model, leaving no question how these characters ended up in the lives they did. Not one of them had a decent guide through life.

In a similar vein, though, the one thing Alpha Dog needs as a film is guidance. While all of the individual scenes are strong and almost all of the characters are well-developed and believable, the film lacks focus and seems unsure of who its main character is, let alone what kind of a story it's trying to be. The movie begins with the loose structure of a documentary, framing the story with a handful of "after-the-fact" interviews (which seem oddly disconnected from the actual resolution of the story). It adds to this feel with each new character getting an immediate captioned label, be it "suspect," "witness," or "victim." However, less than an hour into the film the majority of the cast has been introduced and the sporadic interview clip or labels that appear throughout the rest of the movie now become odd distractions amidst a story that has become much more of a straightforward narrative. This also results in a vaguely unsatisfying ending when the film falls back into pure documentary form for the denouement.

A similar lack of focus haunts the cast of characters. Although the film advertises itself as a rough biopic, Johnny is barely on screen for half the movie, the vast majority of his time early on, and far too many characters are left on the wayside for this to be considered an ensemble story. So whose story is this? Desperate gangsta wanna-be Elvis (Shawn Hatosy) appears in the beginning of the film as Johnny's often-humiliated lapdog, and then isn't seen again until he's pushed to deal with Zack. When he discovers his little brother is missing, Jake rampages through a party looking for Johnny, then vanishes himself, only surfacing once more in the story. As for Zack, he's far more of an objective than a prime mover in the film. Oddly enough, the character who dominates the story with the most screen time and development ends up being Frankie, and the film deals far more with his growing affection for the "stolen boy" and the looming conflicts between his morals, his loyalties, and his fears.

Despite the somewhat unbalanced framework around them, the story and characters of Alpha Dog are, fortunately, strong enough to support themselves. While the weak structure is a bit distracting, the tale of Frankie and Zack is compelling enough to lead viewers past the script's bumps to a good character-driven story.

Alpha Dog

Universal Pictures
Rated R; 117 min.

Buy tickets now

Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.

Alpha Dog courtesy Universal Pictures

From the Trenches
Working screenwriters discuss in their own words a particular aspect of screenwriting, from the mechanics of writing to the personal and professional impact that writing has had on their lives. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Art of Craft
Screenwriting experts discuss how to approach various aspects of writing and the writing life. A mini-seminar each week from the people who write the books and teach the classes. > VIEW ARCHIVE

The Big Picture

Features that cover all aspects of screenwriting, from our "Seven Best" lists to analysis of old favorites and new classics. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Expert Witness
A panel of experts assembled to provide the facts about the screenwriting business. Readers will be able have their questions answered by an agent, producer, entertainment attorney, and WGA representative—and without paying that 10% commission. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Son of a Pitch
A weekly tutorial on how to write a script. Each week deals with a different element of creating a script, with the ultimate goal to provide a step-by-step instruction manual for new writers. The guide for this is a writer just diving into screenwriting himself, who asks the pros questions any new screenwriter would have about this brave new world. > VIEW ARCHIVE

Weekend Read
Film, book, web site and technology reviews from a writer’s perspective. How can these items help a writer on his or her journey, or make that journey more enjoyable? > VIEW ARCHIVE

DVD Review of the Day
DVD reviews from a writer’s point of view. What aspects of this script and features of this DVD illuminate the writing, development, and storytelling process? > VIEW ARCHIVE