Perfect cast and a good story

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

See this movie for one thing - Ben Foster. The movie is otherwise just this side of average, though an engaging story. Think of it as "Savages" light. *Really* light! And then we get to Ben Foster. He captures the psychotic out-of-control life of a meth addict way too close for comfort. It's as scary as it is just painful to watch. He really sells the out-of-control desperation. Zero suspension of disbelief necessary. Enjoy the movie, but don't blame me if you find yourself just waiting for the next scene with Foster's character to come up.

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.