Based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of Nick Markowitz. At the time of filming, the case had not yet been sentenced.
Inspired by real events, Cassavetes conducted a previous research on the behavior of some rich teenagers or those who live from drug trafficking.
The result is a film with an overwhelming dramatic power, rough, which refers to a cinema of raw realism -with elements of reality and documentary- about urban tribes.
In "Alpha Dog" the story is simple: a boy owes another a change for the purchase of a certain amount of drugs.
As the dealer sees that he does not pay him, he decides to play a practical joke on him and kidnaps the debtor's younger brother.
From that moment on, things get complicated, the boy's mother files a complaint, the FBI comes to his aid and everything gets complicated for everyone's bad luck.
With a script by Cassavetes himself, the film has scenes of extreme violence and excellent performances in which its actors, among the well-known Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis, Justin Timberlake and the younger Anton Yelchin, show that they are more than just figures of the American establishment.
"Alpha Dog..." is an excellent film of exasperating dramatism, which allows us to peek, through fiction, into a part of that forbidden zone of American society in which everything seems to be lived to the limit, until death comes.
