Described as a docudrama, it's really a feature film that follows the time line of events pretty closely but perforce must introduce fictionalized dialog. That's okay. Nobody was taking notes and the dialog is convincing enough. The armature of the story is that some guy owes some other guy thirty large but he won't pay up, so the creditors kidnap the debtor's younger brother, take good care of him for a few days, and then, despite his swearing not to tell anyone about his so-called kidnapping, they shoot him full of holes in the desert in the mistaken belief that the fifteen-year-old hostage would squeal anyway and all the gang would get life imprisonment. It reminded me of "Kids" except that this was far more violent.It serves as an introduction to the anomic life of teen agers in the prettiest parts of Southern California -- Pomona, Montclair, Palm Springs. Their families are middle class but the kids themselves transcend social class. They form a logical set of their own. None seems to have a job. One muses about "taking a course" but it's clear that they have little interest in anything except the goings on of their own clique. They might find a graphic novel too challenging. Some of them wouldn't be able to find their home town on a map. They lack curiosity.What interests them the most is dope and money. Sex is readily available, with the beautiful girls (all with the same hair style) as eager as the boys, sometimes more eager. One girl applies all sorts of ministrations to her boy friend but he can't get it up. (And the girl is the unimpeachably beautiful Olivia Wilde.) The truly amazing thing is that ANY of the boys can get it up. They suck on bongs, smoke weed constantly, and drink hard liquor straight out of the bottle. No wonder some of them have a problem.It struck me that the parties ranged from ecstatic displays to bloody rage, with very little in between, a kind of binary party. But it's a little hard to reconcile this with the effects of marijuana or opiates with violence. Nevertheless, the violence is there and Ben Foster as one of the over-tattooed skin heads gets the palm for particularly intense role enactment. The guy is a human wrecking ball, trashing houses, decking three or four adversaries, and wearing white after Labor Day. Only one of these aimless guys shows any common sense but he's swept up in the plot anyway. They're all on the same hedonic treadmill.I wish that at least one of them would open a book or be seen watching something other than bad Westerns and cartoons. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, and so is a whole generation.

This is a crime/drug movie. It has an outstanding cast (Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Emile Hirsch, Sharon Stone, the late Anton Yelchin, etc.), but it wasn't quite an outstanding movie. It experiments with techniques like split screen, documentary style, and other styles, but doesn't stick with them long enough, and those work to a certain degree. The movie was a bit unpleasant and featured a gratuitous amount of violence and language (as can be expected for a movie like this), and a story was somewhat present if a little difficult to follow. My favorite scene was the Marco Polo scene in the pool. The cast did try hard and work fairly well together, but the end result wasn't really a classic.** out of ****

Version I saw: UK DVD releaseActors: 6/10Plot/script: 7/10Photography/visual style: 5/10Music/score: 5/10Overall: 6/10It's only by chance that I ever heard about this movie. I don't remember it getting much of a release back in 2006, and I am not surprised. It's not a bad movie, but not much better than that.After a slow start, the film has a few interesting things to say about the Californian youth culture, and paces nicely toward an end in which I have to admit I was engaged. Justin Timberlake (in the midst of his transformation from music star to acting star) stands out as one of the slackers/wannabe gangsters who kidnap a kid and then don't know what to do with him, and the young cast are ably supported by veterans Bruce Willis, Harry Dean Stanton and Sharon Stone.It is interesting to see a film which only becomes interesting when the action *stops* rather than starts. On the whole though, I would only recommend seeking out this movie if you have nothing better to do.For my full review, see my independent film blog on Blogspot, Cinema Inferno: http://cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/alpha-dog-2006.html

Based on real events, this movie is somewhat hectic, too much attention is paid on orgiastic parties driven by drugs and alcohol. The scenes prior to the tragic event are rather superficial. As for the cast, Bruce Willis and Sharon Stone are fine as usual (though their parts are rather small), but the real surprises to me were Ben Foster, Anton Yeltchin and Justin Timberlake, especially the latter, who is mostly soft and "dilatory" in his music, but gave a remarkably tough performance in the movie. Female characters did not differ much to me - most of them were just used and sometimes abused by those young males, who often called them bitches. However, it is strange that, in the U.S., for such a conduct (I mean this pseudo-kidnapping where the "victim" could freely move, party and had no hard feelings towards the involved) it is possible to get life sentence! But potential harsh penalty can provoke desperate measures...I assume the movie is meant to be a warning for hedonistic youngsters and as a hint that "all criminals get caught", but it is still watchable - but not a family movie.