There’s nothing to gain, and everything to lose–by doing the right thing. And given their premised worldview, that’s very logical. The godless youth in Alpha Dog aren’t prepared to do good for others at the expense of their own good. In case of conflict, you put his welfare above your own. For genuine friendship involves a willingness to sacrifice your self-interest in the interests of a friend. In Alpha Dog, you can be friendly without being a friend. (And due to sin, Christian friendship can be worse in practice than in principle.)īut secular friendship is very tenuous.
He might rat them out.ĭue to common grace, secular friendship can be better in practice than in principle. The characters in Alpha Dog exhibit a consistently amoral viewpoint. Because it has such a despairing worldview, it often tries to blunt the rusty, serrated edge of its steely worldview. Alpha Dog doesn’t cheat us by blinking in the face of the abyss. It’s refreshing to see a film with a grim worldview which is faithful to its grim worldview–which relentlessly pursues its bleak outlook on life to the bitter end. In general, directors and studios insist on giving every film an artificially upbeat ending, even if there’s nothing in the plot which justifies that outcome. Speaking of realism, one thing that Alpha Dog has going for it is the courage to avoid a tacked-on happy ending. However, a lot of men and women are shallow individuals, so their superficiality is realistic. Of course, you could criticize a film for having shallow characters. There’s no room for character development when the character is so superficial to begin with. Some critics pan the film because it lacks character development. Many of the “Top Critics” panned the film. Out of curiosity, I glanced at some of the reviews over at Rotten Tomatoes. Needless to say, Alpha Dog is a very different sort of film. It’s only weakness is a storybook ending which is a little too good to be true. A complex film which succeeds at several different levels. I’m Not Scared is an Italian film ( Io non ho paura). The two movies I saw were Alpha Dog and I’m Not Scared. And a steady diet of gourmet food might begin to pall. They may dramatize themes which are worthy of dramatization.įried chicken isn’t gourmet food, but it’s perfectly good food in its own right.
That doesn’t mean that good movies of the second variety aren’t worthwhile. They can’t rise above the level of the underlying material. There’s not much room for improvement, because the underlying material limits their potential excellence. Ii) Other movies are about as good as they could be given the raw material. I) Some good movies had the potential for greatness if only they had a great director to make the most of the raw material. A movie can be good in either of two ways: To find out if the movie is worthy watching in the first place.īefore I proceed any further, permit me to define what I mean by a good movie, in contrast to a great movie. Of course, that’s not the best way to see a movie, but it’s a good way to sample a movie. I watched them both at the same time, alternating between one and the other.
#ALPHA DOG MOVIE ROTTEN TOMATOES TV#
Two movies were simulcast on TV late last night: one a great movie, the other a good movie.