As “Alpha Dog” opens, Johnny Truelove (a stand in for real life alleged criminal Jesse James Hollywood) is a 20-year-old pot dealer in his posh L.A. neighborhood. Business is booming too- he owns his own house, drives fancy cars, and has a posse of friends who follow him around and do the legwork for the drug trade. Unfortunately, Johnny (Emile Hirsch) has also made a number of enemies in his enterprise; in particular, his former friend Jake Mazursky (Ben Foster) owes him drug money, which Jake refuses to pay.
Tensions escalate as both sides stage retaliation attacks on the other, until finally Johnny does something completely rash. While searching for Jake one fateful day, he and his friends instead run into Jake’s 15-year-old brother Zack (Anton Yelchin), who they stash in Johnny’s van. Zack has just been kidnapped.
The problem with this kind of impulsive behavior is that you can’t really plan ahead once you’re in the middle of it. So, for a while Zack is just kind of shifted around from one of Johnny’s friends’ homes to another. Mostly he is in the company of Frankie Ballenbacher (Justin Timberlake), an easy-going guy who takes a shine to the kid.
In a way, it’s the worst thing he could have done to Zack; for a 15-year-old, being kidnapped by Frankie seems like a pretty good time. They get drunk and high together, they go to parties and flirt with girls, there are (virtually) no parents around to nag… Zack even has multiple opportunities to escape, but doesn’t because it all seems so fun. No one wants to realize how serious the situation really is, even when things start to turn dangerous.
Eventually though, Johnny begins to get nervous- he calls his lawyer, and discovers that what they’ve done could potentially land them in jail for life- something he’ll do anything to avoid. And, rather than try and bargain with Zack, he’s more comfortable with just having him “go away.” Soon enough he finds a willing triggerman in his sycophantic pal Elvis (Shawn Hatosy), who recruits a few others to carry out the execution. Eventually even “nice guy” Frankie comes around too- though he really wants to let the kid go, he feels trapped in by Johnny’s influence. Still, as he’s taping up Zack’s mouth and hands Frankie reassures Zack that nothing bad is going to happen. Frankie may think that he’s comforting the boy, but the audience knows better- he’s really trying to convince himself.
And there you have it- all of these kids, in one way or another, are fooling themselves by blindly following the crowd. Frankie and company think they are beholden to Johnny out of fear of retribution, and appreciation for the lifestyle he provides them. Zack (along with all those kids at the parties who could have saved him by saying something) tricks himself into believing that it’s all a game. Only Johnny seems to be thinking independently, but only in the most rudimentary, self-serving fashion.
In that respect, “Alpha Dog” is both heartbreaking and heartfelt- it shows a side of adolescence that most of us would probably rather forget or ignore, but does so in a way that hopefully will resonate with kids today. The performances, particularly Yelchin and Timberlake’s, are fantastic, and the story is just enticing enough to make Truelove’s life appealing without overly glamorizing his behavior.
After all, the party may look fun- but one by one, they all go over the bridge.
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