I have frequently and rashly proclaimed a January or February movie to be the worst of the year, only to eat my words upon viewing a late-spring cheapo slasher flick or a misbegotten summer romance.
Yet I persevere in my premature proclamations, because I truly doubt Hollywood will produce anything this year that bottoms “Alpha Dog” for offensively bad filmmaking.
The script is disgusting. The acting is steadily ridiculous, punctuated by frequent stretches of immaturity. Continuity of story, location or even the weather is nonexistent. The goals of the director are incomprehensible, and since the director is also the writer, please see “the script is disgusting,” above, as it bears repeating.
Nick Cassavetes has now delivered two of the more unfortunate movies of recent years, with “Alpha Dog” and previously with the empty treacle of “The Notebook.”
At least “The Notebook” introduced us to Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, two legitimate stars of the now and the near future. “Alpha Dog” conversely casts a pall over the near-term careers of actors like Emile Hirsch, Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis and Anton Yelchin.
Allegedly based on a drug case from California’s southern valleys, “Alpha Dog” purports to tell the tale of wayward high- schoolers led by Hirsch’s “Johnny Truelove” character. Johnny is lead canine in a vicious, unredeemable pack of minor drug dealers working out of their clueless parents’ suburban homes. Cassavetes imagines these boys from a rap video, with prostitutes – they use a cruder term – on each arm and firearms tucked in the waistbands of their jockey shorts.
Crazy Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster) can’t pay Johnny back for a drug delivery. So Johnny and his poseur henchmen, led by Justin Timberlake as Frankie, kidnap Jake’s little brother (Anton Yelchin) for payment.
The story is supposed to gain weight as their actions “spin out of control” and the tough boyz have to contemplate returning their hostage or killing him in a cover-up. But Cassavetes is less interested in plot development or emotion than in a puerile presentation of the alleged suburban gangsta life. Nothing much happens as we watch the alpha dogs drink, toke and party.
It is more than a parenthetical aside to say that “Alpha Dog’s” treatment of women is deplorably misogynistic. No wonder some of the teenage girls walked out of the screening. Justin Timberlake may be the ongoing pop sensation, but more than a few dads will want to put some buckshot in his sexy back after this misbegotten film.
Much of the movie seems to exist to give a large posse of whitebread kids and adults the chance to strike gangsta poses. Timberlake drops f-bombs, deals weed and sanctions a killing – oh my! Cassavetes claimed he did “research” among his daughter’s high school friends to achieve reality in his little gangbangers, which tells me two things: One, the Cassavetes group of friends is unlike any suburban group of high schoolers I’ve ever met, anywhere; and two, his daughter should consider dating a good libel lawyer.
It’s not just that every actor finds it necessary to chew scenery. They chew it, then pack it into a blunt and smoke it. After we’ve already suffered through nearly two hours of Timberlake, Hirsch, Foster and Shawn Hatosy spouting vile dialogue and brandishing weapons, we’re then subjected to Stone in a fat suit.
For inexplicable reasons, Cassavetes tells some of the story through interviews with a “documentary researcher,” a device picked up and dropped at random. This “researcher” interviews Stone’s hysterical-mom character in a mental institution in the wake of the crimes, and it appears the make-up department was scrambling to spend the rest of its budget.
Stone is made to look repulsive, and Cassavetes’ script offers her no redeeming exit lines. I had the misfortune of seeing this train wreck on the same night as watching Spike Jonze put on old-woman makeup for the DVD of “Jackass 2.”
Guess what? Spike Jonze is far more moving as an aging woman than Stone is here.
Comparisons between the two films don’t end there. Both “Jackass 2” and “Alpha Dog” feature characters intentionally defecating on a living-room carpet. Again, “Jackass 2” wins the contest. The silly boys in the Jackass clan are only hurting themselves, and all their stunts play with a sweet camaraderie that makes the viewer long to be part of the gang.
“Alpha Dog,” by contrast, makes the viewer want to put the gang in a maximum security facility. I’ll let you know if I see another film this year that is so bad it makes “Alpha Dog” look good, but don’t hold your breath.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-954-1686 or at mbooth@denverpost.com.
“Alpha Dog”
R for extreme violence, language, sexuality and drug use|1 hour, 55 minutes|SLACKER CRIME|Written and directed by Nick Cassavetes; starring Emile Hirsch, Justin Timberlake, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone|Opens today at area theaters.
Can Nick Cassavetes carry on the legacy?
Nick Cassavetes has a slim directing résumé, but an impressive pedigree (he’s the son of director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands). Here’s a look at the four films he directed before today’s release of “Alpha Dog” (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions, except as noted):
The Notebook
$81 ($13.5, 2004)
John Q.
$71.8 ($20.3, 2002)
She’s So Lovely
$7.3 ($3, 1997)
Unhook the Stars
$272,542 ($33,258, 1996)
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