Alpha Dog (Widescreen) | DVD Review

ALPHA DOG opens with a montage of home video footage over a musical bed. There’s nothing particularly atypical about this and there’s nothing wrong with starting a film on a safe foot. While safe is one thing, obvious is a whole other. Laughably obvious is even worse still. The images in the home video footage are of children running, playing, laughing, essentially being what children should be – pure, innocent, full of promise and potential. The musical bed is a particularly saccharine rendition of “Over the Rainbow” (no offence to the late Eva Cassidy – it’s a beautiful cover, just contrived and put to manipulative use here). You know that as soon as the song ends, we will be shown what these boisterous little youngsters have become. Before long, we will be watching another movie where a bunch of privileged white kids waste their lives away drinking and doing drugs, calling each other “faggot” to really make sure it stings and maybe even killing each other for a little fun. In case you hadn’t figured it all out, they may be acting like gangsters but they’re still playing a game as if they were little boys. Writer/Director/Son of Hollywood royalty, Nick Cassavetes has taken the true story of a 15-year-old boy who was kidnapped and killed over hundreds of dollars owed, a story that is appalling and shocking, and turned it into something tired and altogether unbelievable. As an added bonus, he has trivialized the senseless death of an actual teenage boy, the anguish his family suffered and the genuine seriousness of a generation out of control.

ALPHA DOG got some minor play in theatres earlier this year and now finds itself dumped on DVD. The single disc gets a bare bones treatment, featuring just a “making-of” and a timeline of the facts of the crime. The “making-of”, entitled “A Cautionary Tale” finds most of the key players being interviewed about how important a film ALPHA DOG is. From Sharon Stone to Justin Timberlake to Cassavetes himself, they each, one by one, try to convince the camera how this is a story that needs to be heard. Just like the movie though, I’m not buying it. The eleven-minute piece veers away from the message to the messenger before long and becomes one testimonial after another about how wonderful a director Cassavetes is and how supportive an environment he creates. The subject matter was apparently very difficult for most of these young actors to deal with and Cassavetes fostered their apprehensions into some of their bravest work. This only tells me of the false, self-contained world this set must have been for all these actors to feel so strongly about performances that played as ridiculous and awkward much of the time. The witness timeline is essentially throwaway. Selecting the option brings up a photo gallery of the long list of witnesses that you can choose, read a quote from and then click again to see where they appeared in the film. After seeing the movie once, I can’t imagine anyone would feel the need to relive it, let alone pick it apart bit by bit.

ALPHA DOG plays out as you would expect, remaining true to form. Only here, form is what bleeds the story of all social significance. Perhaps, a different dog behind the camera could have turned this into the meaningful piece it had the potential to be. Perhaps Cassavetes still thinks it’s all child’s play.

Movie rating – 2

Disc Rating – 1