Alpha Dog [Blu-ray]

Based on the true story of the murder of Nick Markowitz (Jake Mazursky, played by Anton Yelchin in the movie), the younger brother of Benjamin Markowitz (Zack Mazursky, played by Ben Foster in the movie) who had been involved in drug dealing with Jesse James Hollywood (Johnny Truelove, played by Emile Hirsch in the movie). The actual events took place in and around Santa Barbara rather than Palm Springs and Claremont, but the essential story is basically true to life. It is a disturbing depiction of events spinning out of control. Nobody, not even the "Alpha Dog" (Truelove) initially intends Jake's death; Truelove only kidnaps him on an impulse to use him as a "marker" to get Zack to repay a debt. It's a stupid idea, and when it goes nowhere Truelove becomes desperate to find a way to get out of his mess. His crew, most especially Frankie (Justin Timberlake in what may be his best movie performance) just wants to send him home, but Truelove is afraid of going to prison. The outcome is horrific and haunting.Nick Cassavetes directs the movie somewhat in the fashion of "Parenthood" -- there are several stories intertwined with no clear central character, making it a story without a main focal point. That in turn makes it somewhat difficult to engage with. But it nonetheless grabs you and if you let it, carries you into a dark little corner of our society where vague rules are made up as they go along and enforced brutally. The cast is stellar and the interplay between standard cinema and documentary style is compelling. I liked it the first time I saw it and the two times I've watched it since.

Great cast, great acting, very moving, and profoundly tragic.This isn't a movie that will leave you with any kind of good feeling, but you won't soon forget it.Kudos to the person who chose to use Eva Cassidy's beautiful rendition of 'Over The Rainbow' during the beginning credits. She deserves a biopic of her own.

The ending….. just prepare yourself. That’s all I’ll say.

Another one of those movies with big names where you invest an hour or so, waiting for it to get interesting and it never does. Completely useless movie. Amazon owes me for the hour of my life wasted. Am so sick of all the B grade crap that Amazon is streaming. What's wrong with spending their budget on a few good movies vs. a whole bunch of GARBAGE??

The banality of evil takes the form of a collection of cynical and tough talking wanna be ganstas and low level drug dealers in Southern California. Everyone wants to party and raise hell until a warped sense of honor and twisted morality lead to a nihilistic nightmare of revenge and trauma. The acting is universally good; it really feels as if these trash talking suburban lost boys and girls are real friends, neighbors and partiers caught up in a set of circumstances in which intervention and sanity have little sway.

I should have turned it off halfway through, but I wanted to see the inevitable ending; obvious as it was, I wanted to see if the wannabes were actually as weak, dumb, and pretentious as they were made out to be. In that regard, the movie did not disappoint, so 2 stars for that.This isn't a gangster movie, though. It's a tragedy - not only to the victim and their family - but to the entertainment industry for glorifying itself with such a low budget, low quality film.This bad movie is based on a tragic story, but it is a weak story; more like a game of connect the dots than a plot.It's a weak story about an overprivileged white kid who watched way too many rap videos growing up. He became a weak, wannabe drug dealer. He let people rip him off & refuse to pay their debts. That's how gangster he was.Rather than get out of the tough business he clearly was not cut out to do, the weak guy hired a reasonably tough Enforcer-type guy to collect his money - but the tough guy ripped off the weak guy, too.One day, the weak guy decided to act like a tough guy, and he and his friends did some stuff they'd seen in movies and videos. It didn't work out for them because... well, those are movies and videos.I'm not going to question why money was spent making this bad movie, or why such a weak story was even considered to be something worth sharing.I'm not going to question the irony of why this weak-sauce wannabe gangster being on the FBI most wanted list is actually part of the movie's advertising tagline.Instead, I'm going to question all the 5 star reviews: haven't any of you ever seen Scarface? The Godfather? Boyz in the Hood? Goodfellas?Hell, even Dog Day Afternoon. It's only $3 on Prime.Check some of those out, then come back and re-read your 5 star review and think about all the copy-paste comments you made, like "ground breaking" , "action packed", "great acting", and "great directing".Please.The best thing this movie has going for it is all the footage of attractive people partying while wearing swimwear.

kept me guessing the entire time. Great acting too

This is a parents worse nightmare. We try an keep our children safe. We tell them that there's nothing out in the streets. But trouble. We give them everything. But, the streets seem 2 just about most of the time get our children anyways. By the way were we that foolish as teenagers. My sympathy goes out 2 mom.Story well told.

I always am interested in movies based on true stories alpha dog is a very good movie a young gang that think they own the town are owed money 1200 dollars they kidnap the guys 15 year old brother keep him collateral until they get the money which of course does not go to plan I don't wana spoil this for anyone that hasn't seen it yet but I enjoy med that movie well worth a watch you won't be disappointed Justin Timberlake suprized me in this one he can actually act Sharon Stone in this aswell showing her age but always puts in a good performance if you like movies based on true events then it's worth a watch.

Really good. I don't know How this film isn't well known. I'm glad I purchased this DVD I never thought I'll really enjoy this that much. Great additional to my DVD collection. Awful how that innocent had to go like that, i dont get it how those idiots really thought they'd get life just for kidnapping him when they could just come clean by let him go and everything else. They'd probably be out of jail by now and the boy would still love them.

A very good gangster move , about drug dealers Justin Timberlake is brilliant .

Amazing film, deep.

I'm not really a lover of action movies but this film has some interesting themes. It's about a group of wannabe gangsters getting in over their heads when they kidnap the teenage brother of a man who owes them money. I think this film can be applied to society as you get a lot of young people acting as though they are something they are not. This film highlights the consequences of your actions. Overall a good watch, with some great acting from Ben Foster who plays the brother of the boy who is kidnapped and Sharon Stone as the mother.