Alpha Dog

In his best film to date, Nick Cassavetes directs with ferocious energy, taking scenes past their logical stopping points and pushing his actors (particularly Foster, who can be as terrifying as Edward Norton in "American History X") to, but never over, the precipice of absurdity.

Alpha Dog isn't a happy movie, but it's dramatically solid and the impressions it leaves will not be easily shaken.

At its best though, the film offers a pointed critique of a youth culture that views someone like Jesse James Hollywood as a person to emulate.

Had the film been more tempered in its textures, had Cassavetes chosen a surer attitude toward his subjects, it might have been devastating. As it stands, though, it's far more showy than substantial.

The whole thing is dizzying, like "Moulin Rouge" without songs and dances extolling love.

Cassavetes throws in everything he can recycle to grab a core-demo viewer -- slutty teens making out, blaring rock music, guns, split screens.

Its main feature is incessant, unimaginative profanity...Take out the cursing, and you're left with a plebeian drama about angry, aimless potheads, sloppily directed by the man who wrote it.

This movie shows the real face of the most American people. I liked it, because it has a unpredictable story. It's great to watch with friends. So i recommend it with my final score 7/10

The movie's cast is seriously spoiled. But despite these obstacles, "Alpha Dog" does a pretty good job maneuvering itself chronologically till the end.

The issues with the movie were the beginning was very convoluted. Then once the movie got going it became a very good movie. However at the end it left a few hole that should have been answered. Over all it was an enjoyable movie but could have been better.

Let me get something off of my chest, "Alpha Dog" is a film soaked in fiction with its love of exploiting hyper-masculinity, high flying martial arts kicks, and everybody delivering pretentious and hammy performances with a Bruce Willis father figure (barely in the film) to only further drive the point home that this is a fictitious over-the-top film with another predictable teens and drugs story. Right, now take everything I just said in the above paragraph and apply that to a non-fiction story where all of the witnesses and people involved in set story are being portrayed by big name actors who, under the direction of Cassavetes, try to relate and tug at the heart-strings of the audience with music, sound effects, and the aforementioned hyper-masculinity. The latter especially **** the limelight away from the film's already weak plot which should always be any film's focus. What a disgustingly manipulative piece of Hollywood dribble! It makes me sad and sick because this true story can be better represented than what this garbage film had to offer. By the end, it left one nasty sour taste in my mouth.

Disney boy Timberlake as a tatted up thug swearing on a flip-phone about a drug deal while drinking whiskey from a bottle. L to the O to the L! The one good thing about this movie? Viewing with others can be a hoot for once you realize how bad it is (which is nearly immediately), the fact that it's supposed to be serious or dramatic morphs it into a comedy for nearly every scene is hilarious due to: 1. Horrendous and abundant over-acting. 2. Ignorant plot. 3. Moronic dialogue. 4. Putrid direction. 5. Much more. Beware: don't play the drink every time you hear the F word game with your friends on this one as you'll all die from alcohol poisoning. Every single person involved with this movie should be ashamed of themselves for being a part of this ridiculous garbage.