7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.8 |
Johnny is a 19-year-old drug dealer in Los Angeles. He comes from a good family, owns his home, several cars and enjoys partying with his friends. When his friend Jake reneges on a debt, Johnny and his boys kidnap Jake's 15-year-old brother, Butch, and hold him as a marker. Even though Butch has numerous chances to escape, he doesn't. He enjoys partying with them, losing his virginity and having a good time—until something goes horribly wrong.
Starring: Ben Foster, Shawn Hatosy, Emile Hirsch, Christopher Marquette, Sharon StoneCrime | 100% |
Biography | 32% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: DTS 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
I’ll give writer/director/sometime actor Nick Cassavetes this: he’s unpredictable. After helming the weepy 1940’s melodrama The Notebook—in which he ham-fistedly tugged at our heartstrings—he decided to take on the brutal, real life story of drug-peddling Jesse James Hollywood, the youngest criminal to ever grace the FBI’s Most Wanted list, a wannabe Tony Montana who was captured in 2005 for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of a naive 15-year-old. Cassavetes’ fictionalization of the tale, Alpha Dog, is as far removed from the maudlin, elderly lovers parted by death plot of The Notebook as possible, but just as the Nicholas Sparks-penned swansong is over-sweetened, Alpha Dogs is often over-dosed, too hopped up and frantic, high on its own true crime supply. Nonetheless, the film is compelling—entertaining is definitely the wrong word—as it explores a drug culture where adults act like children and teenagers try desperately to seem adult.
Johnny Truelove fires a warning shot...
Alpha Dog appeared on HD DVD in early 2007 and Universal has just now gotten around to bringing it out on Blu-ray, with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that may not be eye-gougingly lifelike, but definitely fulfills all of the film's intentions. The best news is that the image doesn't appear to be tampered with at all; a thin grain structure is intact, edge enhancement is nowhere to be seen, and color is natural and balanced. Likewise, I didn't spot any odd compression anomalies. The picture has a rich, filmic texture, and clarity is generally very strong, with ample detail visible in both close-ups and longer shots. Most of the film has a grim color palette—especially the parts that take place outside at night or in dimly lit interiors—but there are occasional flashes of vividness, like the desert outside Palm Springs and daylight poolside scenes. Contrast is nice and tight, and while black levels are usually solid, some of the nighttime scenes look a bit flat and grayish in order to retain shadow detail. Perhaps the only downside to seeing Alpha Dog in high definition is that the fat suit Sharon Stone wears at the end of the film looks incredibly fake and her make-up overly harsh. Of course, I can't dock the transfer for that, but it is somewhat jarring.
Alpha Dog's appearance on Blu-ray is accompanied by a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that's mostly hip hop and dialogue driven. There's less out-and-out violence and action in the film than you'd think, so there's really not much else for this track to do. The rear channels don't get a whole lot of play, with few cross-channel movements or effects that require directional precision, but the back of the soundfield sometimes swells with ambience, like drunken party chatter or outdoorsy sounds. Most of the intensity comes from up front, as characters scream at each other and rap beats or the occasional metal riff blare loudly. While it has definite presence, the music is sometimes overly abrasive and shrill. This seems intentional, though, a way of underscoring the insanity of what's happening on screen. Dialogue, however, is always intelligible, riding high enough in the mix to never get swamped in the surrounding sounds.
A Cautionary Tale: The Making of Alpha Dog (SD, 11:29)
The only special feature included on the disc is this "making of" documentary, which features scads of
behind-the-scenes footage along with interviews—with the director and actors—that are actually
insightful. (Not exactly a rarity, but unusual when most "making of" docs are pure EPK fluff.) It's
definitely worth watching, but I wish there were additional features that delved into the facts of the
real-life case and the controversy surround the film's release.
Gritty, unrestrained, and at times almost unbearably chaotic, Alpha Dog is like an after-school special gone terribly, horribly wrong, a grim reminder of why good parenting should never fall out of fashion. Director Nick Cassavetes throws us head first into a young adult drug culture where most decisions are poor decisions, and where poor decisions have life-altering—and ending—consequences. A good film, but not a great one, Alpha Dog will appeal to the true crime crowd and, possibly, the same kind of bad-apple kids that it depicts. The film makes a strong showing on Blu-ray—aside from a lack of substantive special features—so if you're interested, I see no reason not to pick this one up.
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