{sidebar id=31}After
watching this film, my first feeling was of annoyance. I was feeling
quite angry at the point that the main core of the events (although
modified for the film) had really happened in real life years ago.
That made me reflect how stupid the human being can be when we see a
tragedy coming on and we do nothing to solve it, thinking that others
will make us the favour to erase the problems.
In any case, the
feeling of annoyance also made me realized that the acting skills of
the young actors had been pretty good, since they had reached the
point of making me hate them during the last scenes. I must say that
I have never been a great fan of Justin Timberlake, but I must
admit that here he is probably the best of the whole film: A
character that can be sweet, naïve, stupid and cruel at the same
time. Alpha Dog features young guys playing to be big fishes into the
crime world surrounded by an environment of luxury, parties, pretty
girls and drugs. Maybe the atmosphere is a bit exaggerated, but it
adds a good touch of decadence to the action.
Ben
Foster as the histrionic older brother of the kidnapped child has
some brilliant moments, although sometimes he suffers of overacting,
like in the scene when answering the telephone call that turns to be
stupidly unmeasured. Saving the distances, during some moments he
could remind you of Edward Norton in American History X.
Bruce Willis is correct in his small role, but Sharon Stone
is not in her most brilliant movie. The part where he appears
interviewed at the end of the film disguised as a fat woman does not
make much sense with the rest of the plot, and does not add anything
to the film. The last minutes could have been perfectly erased, but
Casavettes wants to stretch the storytelling too much, and that
makes the film to lose power after the climax. Not a bad reflection
about the MTV American way of living, where owning in a big villa and
playing to be the hardest gangster seems to be the coolest ultimate
feature to gain respect in a group of friends, but the film in
general turns to be a bit too much artificial.