Recently a Hollywood movie, "Based on a true story" came out; The movie was brilliant, reasonably faithfull to the facts, but horribly slanted and biased.
The movie I speak of is "Alpha Dog." An entertaining and surprisingly clever film, based on the true story of the murder of Nick Markowitz. Nick Markowitz was killed over a dispute his older half brother Benjamin Markowitz had with a "mid-level" drug dealer named Jesse James Hollywood. The sum of the debt was 1,200 dollars.
Overall the movie gets the basic facts right, Jesse James (called Johnny Truelove for legal reasons) was a drug dealer who would frequently make loans of drugs to his boyhood friends who would pay him back upon selling the drugs. Of course sometimes they would come up short, at which point they would become Jesse's personal slaves. In the movie a pathetic character named "Elvis," (real name Ryan Hoyt) is forced to clean up "Johnny's" Pitbulls feces and, "dump it out, and pick it up again."
He is later accused of being a homosexual and humiliated at a party. But
there is one man who refuses to be "Johnny's" slave, "Jake Muzurski" (real name Benjamin Markowitz). The feud over money gradually escalates, "Johnny" threatens "Jake's" girlfriend. "Jake" tells the insurance company about a scam Johnny is pulling. In response "Johnny" gets "Jake" fired by calling his boss pretending to be his parole officer and telling him that "Jake" has been robbing houses. In retaliation "Jake" and some friends trash "Johnny's" house, culminating in "Jake" defecating on "Johnny's" carpet.
This tit for tat feud is agreed upon by all sources, there was some type of feud between the two men, and the feud started over a disagreement over 1,200 dollars. The actual details of this original disagreement are unknown; "CrimeLibrary.com" implies that the disagreement was old, prior to Benjamin (i.e. Jake) going to prison.
In the movie, "Johnny" responds by kidnapping "Jake's" younger brother, on a whim. At first they keep him bound and gagged but quickly they untie him, and he seems to be just another one of their friends. He has many opportunities to escape but always turns them down because he is having a good time, and doesn't want to complicate the situation. When "Johnny" discovers that the punishment for kidnapping is life in prison, he eventually decides to order "Zack Mazurski" (real life name Nick Markowitz) killed. The humiliated Elvis agrees to kill him on the condition that his debt is forgiven.
The movie is generally accurate in that Nick Markowitz was in real life treated well, and had opportunities to escape but turned them down assuming the dispute would be settled. CrimeLibrary.com seems to think that he was deliberately drugged to keep him sedated, whereas the movie implies he voluntarily drank, and smoked pot because he was partying with his captors. Most witnesses seem to agree that he was just partying with his captors.
But this is where the movies some what sinister disinformation comes into play. The director of the movie and the writer became close friends with the father of Jesse James and generally accepted his version of events, and rejected the prosecutors more sinister portrayal of Jesse James. What the movie leaves out is in my opinion very critical to explaining why Nick didn't run away. Nick's older brother had been a longtime friend of Jesse James, the two had played baseball together and had been very close friends at one time. Nick wasn't just a sheltered boy partying with strangers, he almost certainly knew Jesse James and so had good reason to believe the dispute would blow over.
But the worst and most sinister disinformation involves the portrayal of Benjamin Markowitz ("Jake Mazurski"), "Jake" is pictured as an out of control drug addict who always has a shaggy dog story for why he doesn't have the money or the drugs. CrimeLibrary portrays him as a former criminal trying to make a honest living, while being harassed over an old debt. "Alpha Dog," shows a depraved "Jake" defecating on "Johnny Trueloves" carpet. In reality he is only accused of throwing a potted plant through "Johnny's" window.
We are also told by Benjamin Mazurski's mother that he owes another drug dealer $50,000 dollars, and that he didn't show up to Nick's funeral because he was afraid of being killed. In reality Benjamin Mazurski lives openly, and has a pregnant fiancé and appears to be lawfully employed as a machinist.
Beyond that in the movie "Jake" knows from the very beginning who holds his brother captive, even receiving a phone call from "Johnny" offering a negotiated settlement. An offer that "Jake" responds to with a deranged threat, and then doesn't tell the police. Even his stepmother, who explicitly blames him for Nick's death, denies this. She says he received a phone message from Jessie James, and that he immediately told them about it. In fact he didn't even know that his brother was missing until a day and a half after it happened.
At the same time "Johnny's" father is portrayed as a stern but loving father, a tough guy with a good heart. What is left out is that Jesse James father has spent time in jail recently for a (major) drug conviction, and is believed by the police to have been a major drug dealer who supplied his son. This is vaguely hinted at in the movie but never clearly stated.
The director of the movie has been very specific of his sympathy for Jesse James, saying he does not deserve the death penalty or life in prison. This sympathy for a man who killed an innocent person over a monetary dispute with a family member, A man who was clearly a sadist, who exploited his friends, and manipulated and lied to get his way, A man who fit the profile of a sociopath perfectly, the precise type of person who is a danger to others, and whose premeditated crime deserves the harshest available punishment (even though I believe the death penalty should be abolished).