Inspired by true events, Alpha Dog follows three fateful days when the lives of a group of Southern California teens suddenly dead-ended. And in the hot California summer six years ago, something did. When you're living without any consequences, anything can happen. R (for pervasive drug use and language, strong violence, sexuality and nudity).In the sprawling, privileged neighborhoods around L.A., bored teenagers with too much time and too much money string one hazy day into another, looking for the next thrill-doing suburban imitations of the thug life they idolize from rap music, video games and movies. That’s the terrifying thing – it could happen anywhere.”
He’s surrounded by all these apathetic people. “He was a calm, relatively good-natured person in circumstances he didn’t understand. “I felt so sorry for what happened to him,” Yelchin, 17, says. To illustrate the point, whenever one of three dozen witnesses is introduced in the film, their name and witness number is flashed on screen. “I kept thinking, `Someone will stop it there’s no way they’re going to kill this kid.’ The whole thing could’ve been avoided every step of the way.” “When I first read about the case, I just kept saying, `There’s no way this is going to happen,'” says Hatosy, 30. It is here that Zack is kidnapped off the street in broad daylight.
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The gritty movie was shot partly in or around such locations as North Hollywood’s Circus Liquors, famous for its giant neon clown, and, nearby, the weird “electricity park” populated by a forest of electrical towers. These are ugly, stunted children whose personalities haven’t developed. “It happens during that weird time of adjustment between youth and adulthood,” says Cassavetes, known for his romantic 2004 hit “The Notebook.” “These are not really good kids who just lost their way for 72 hours. The bleak, painful story takes place over three summer days in which hotheaded local pot dealer Truelove kidnaps the teen Zack Mazursky (Anton Yelchin) as a way to extort money from the boy’s brother (Ben Foster), who owed him money. It was who was going to be the alpha dog.” It’s a story about ego – two guys who wouldn’t back down. “But I think that makes the toughness of my character more believable. “I was pretty afraid in my bones most of the time,” he recalls. He says he often felt uncomfortable on the set because of the over-amped dialogue and rawness of the action. It threw us for a pretty big loop,” he said.Īlthough it was three years ago, memories of filming “Alpha Dog” are still fresh for Hirsch, 21, who plays Johnny Truelove, the Hollywood character. “Alpha Dog” was originally filmed three years ago, but when Hollywood was caught, Cassavetes, the son of actor-director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, had to dump his original ending and called in some of the actors to shoot a new one. At the same time, lawyers for Hollywood fought unsuccessfully to have the film’s release halted on the grounds it could deprive the defendant of a fair trial.
The project was first put on hold when initial distributor New Line Cinema had a falling out with producers Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, resulting in Universal’s bid for the drama. He spent almost five years on the lam until his capture in March 2005.įor director and actors alike, the making and release of “Alpha Dog” was a long, fraught process. The notorious case remained in the news for years because Hollywood, at age 20, was one of the youngest ever to make the FBI’s Most-Wanted List.
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“Alpha Dog,” which opens Friday and also stars Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis and Emile Hirsch, is based on the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old West Hills boy Nicholas Markowitz in August 2000, and the subsequent conviction of four men and forthcoming trial of a fifth, Jesse James Hollywood. They didn’t want to do it – but I said you had to do it.” “We had to sell it on-screen that these guys had known each other since they were little kids, and the boot camp was a way to turn them into a pack. “There’s nothing like shared pain to bond people,” says Cassavetes, who wrote and directed the movie. Intensity of `Alpha Dog’ left marks on young cast – The Mercury News