Après THE NOTEBOOK, déjà un classique pour les filles voulant pleurer un bon coup, Nick Cassavetes effectue un virage à 180 degrés et nous offre un drame criminel dégoulinant de testostérone. Basé sur une sordide histoire vraie, MÂLE ALPHA décrit comment un adolescent de bonne famille (Anton Yelchin, attachant) est kidnappé par un jeune caïd (Emile Hirsh, charismatique) et son meilleur ami (Justin Timberlake, surprenant), qui veulent forcer son frère (Ben Foster, effréné) à rembourser ses dettes. Avec son cocktail sexe-drogues-violence et ses dialogues machos et vulgaires, ce croisement entre BULLY et BRICK n'est certainement pas pour les âmes sensibles. Mais si vous voulez voir d'excellents jeunes acteurs jouer des petits cons qui se prennent pour Tony Montana, le film s'avère aussi divertissant que troublant.

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(...) it is a gritty urban crime drama involving teenagers, guns, drugs and sex, all sharply acted, well-directed and astutely put together, with Timberlake's performance as one of its greatest attributes. (...) Timberlake's performance as Frankie is a standout, emotionally complex and believably street-tough. Anton Yelchin (...) is given plenty to chew on as Zack, too, and his laudable performance suggests he may be one to watch. It's good to see two other interesting young actors here, too: Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster as the feuding juvenile delinquents. (...) Southern California is depicted not as a glamorous wonderland but as a barren wasteland, a desert of stucco-coated houses and ugly chain-link fences. (...) Cassavetes shoots most of it with hand-held cameras in a documentary style, even framing the story with realistic-looking interviews with some of the figures (...). It's a nightmare of a place, this SoCal, populated by vulgar kids who have seen plenty of crimes committed in movies but have no idea how to perpetrate one themselves.

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(...) hurled to the screen with more hopped-up energy than insight, ALPHA DOG is standard-issue tabloid fare pimped out as a serious true-crime saga. (...) pic's hypothetical re-creation of Markowitz's last days and swingin' depictions of wasted Southern California youth feel as though they've been conceived for a routine studio fiction, while stylistically, the incororation of mock-documentary footage and occasional use of split screen come across as flippant rather than illuminating. (...) Climax, when it finally arrives, is terrible but unprotracted (...). Cassavetes elicits strong to mixed perfs, with the heavily tattooed Timberlake surprisingly credible as the drama's moral fulcrum.

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