ALPHA DOG
RYAN: Alpha male that I am, I enjoyed “Alpha Dog.”
CAROLINE: Yes, thanks to Universal for the advanced screening. This wasn’t a bad movie for a January release. I had a feeling it might be ok, and I’m pleased to report that it was.
RYAN: Indeed.
CAROLINE: It’s very hard to like the characters in this movie, though I’m trying not to confuse that with not liking the film.
RYAN: It’s a real ensemble piece with an interesting cast: Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis, Lukas Haas, Ben Foster, Jimmy Timberlake.
CAROLINE: And they’re all pretty good. Even Justin holds his own among the crowd. But he doesn’t have to do a whole lot more than use a lot of profanity.
RYAN: I feel like he really just laughed and got high for the whole film.
CAROLINE: There was a lot of that for him, yes. And he had many a tattoo. But I thought he did fine. He didn’t stand out as any better or any worse than anyone else.
RYAN: I thought Ben Foster really stood out, not only as super-sexy, but also as really good.
CAROLINE: Which one is he?
RYAN: He’s the guy whose brother is abducted.
CAROLINE: Oh my, he was whack-a-doo! But fun to watch because he played it well. And you thought he was hot, but I sure didn’t.
RYAN: And Sharon Stone was great. She didn’t have that big of a role but she did a great job. And Bruce Willis, whatever.
CAROLINE: It’s not a big part for him – it’s kind of a throwaway role. The movie is based on a true story of these over-privileged degenerate kids, and their behavior is so appalling that it’s sort of hard to enjoy the movie, even though it’s a not half bad.
RYAN: Well, you don’t really feel for anyone.
CAROLINE: It’s hard to give a crap about the well-being of any of these characters because they’re so hateful and horrible, and all they do is get wasted all the time.
RYAN: My biggest complaint about the film is the extraneous use of chyrons to identify every scene. They use it to show who’s a witness, and what day and time it is, but it’s so inconsistent that it actually confuses you and doesn’t enhance the film at all.
CAROLINE: Yeah, literally every other scene has a little blurb at the bottom of the screen that says, “Mayflower Motel, 9:18AM” or something, and it’s like, “Ok, nobody cares about that!” I know they’re trying to show us the timeline of what went down, like a real court case, but it just doesn’t work.
RYAN: Some of them aren’t even up long enough for you to read the whole thing completely. It was just really poorly done.
CAROLINE: Totally lame.
RYAN: Bottom line?
CAROLINE: Well, we weren’t expecting much from this movie, but it’s actually totally watchable, and it definitely makes you feel something. There are some highly tense moments that work very well. But is it a must-see? No.
RYAN: I expected to hate it, but I actually enjoyed it. It was entertaining and it moved well, though it was too long.
CAROLINE: As so, so many films are.
RYAN: It was two hours long, and I think I turned to you several times and said, “Come on, now, let’s wrap things up.” But overall, it was a lot better than I thought it would be.