Disturbingly True...

I had no idea what to expect from the movie Alpha Dog going into it, and when I heard that Justin Timberlake was in it, I thought this could be horrible… however, after watching it, I really liked it.

The story takes place in California and I had no idea that it was based on a true story. So when there kept being subtitles that said witness I was confused. It follows the story of a drug dealer who can’t pay his dues so a rival dealer kidnaps his kid brother. Along the way they befriend the kid brother and eventually the movie takes a drastic change of mood.

Ben Foster and Justin Timberlake have come a long way from their early Disney days to becoming believable California drug dealers. Even Richard Roeper agrees that Timberlake “has what it takes to be a genuine movie star.”

While the movie does lull at times, it never made me want to turn it off. In fact, especially since I had no idea of the true story, when things went sour I couldn’t stop watching. Once you’ve started it seems like you become connected to this entire cast of characters and you see what each and every one of them is going through and why they make the choices they do.

Regardless, like the true story, the movie does have a heart-wrenching ending including a stellar final scene from Sharon Stone who proves that she still has something up her sleeves. She manages to transform her character from concerned mother to borderline psycho by the end and the first time I watched, I thought it was the actual mother who was speaking at the end and not Stone.

Robert Denerstein from the Denver Rocky Mountain News writes, "There's a feel of authenticity about Alpha Dog, primarily because of the performances of the young actors." And, by the end of this movie I forgot that I was watching a movie and felt like I had been watching a crime reenactment on some crime documentary. Overall, I’d rate the movie a B.