Alpha Dog

A kidnapping goes tragically awry in this rambling crime drama from writer/director Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook). Based on the real-life case of Californian drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood, the film explores how a pack mentality and parental disregard can potentially turn even socially respectable teens wild. Emile Hirsch plays a thinly veiled Hollywood - here renamed Johnny Truelove - a wannabe gangster whose privileged life sours when he abducts a junkie debtor's kid brother (Anton Yelchin) and entrusts him to his right-hand man Frankie (an impressive Justin Timberlake). But what makes this boisterous account particularly compelling is that, instead of being shut away, the youngster is treated to a weekend of outrageous partying. His wide-eyed admiration for his captors is heartbreaking, even while individual events, such as his loss of virginity, are quirkily amusing. It's this emotional dichotomy that gives his eventual fate such an unsettling sting, despite Cassavetes's tendency to dilute the impact with showy visuals and faux-documentary inserts.