"What was the end result?"

The question is posed by Nick Cassavetes, son of legendary filmmaker John, of the strange series of events in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley that inspired his new movie "Alpha Dog."

He answers himself: "In a mathematical sense, we're minus one Nick Markowitz. That's what really happened. The rest is just a bunch of bullshit."

It is exactly those ill-fated happenings — drinking, drugs, sex and murder among well-off, white, suburban young people — that Cassavetes depicts in his film, which stars Justin Timberlake, Ben Foster, Sharon Stone and Bruce Willis, among others.

Markowitz was 15-years-old when he was kidnapped and killed, then buried in a shallow grave in a remote Santa Barbara County camping area seven years ago. Prosecutors say he was killed over a $1,200 drug debt owed by his half-brother, and that Markowitz was given numerous opportunities to escape his captors — led by the charistmatic and exuberantly named Jesse James Hollywood.

But perhaps out of naivete, perhaps out of fear, he didn't flee.

Hollywood and four other young men were charged, but Hollywood evaded authorities for nearly five years. During that time, at the prodding of his daughter, Cassavetes began working on a script. He finished most of the filming before Hollywood was captured at a beach town in Brazil in March 2005.

"There's absolutely no reason this kid should be dead. None whatsoever. It's impossible," said Cassavetes, who pored over transcripts from trials in which the four were convicted. "It's like 'No way!' But he is. And the more you read (trial transcripts), the enigma is: Why did he have to die? I don't know if any of us will ever know the real actual satisfactual 'It' of it. But the beauty of the film and the process was trying to make some sense of it."

The film's release has been delayed for more than a year due to a legal dispute revolving around a prosecutor's aid to filmmakers. The crux of the problem rests in Cassavetes' effort to ferret out the facts that his film then riffs upon by changing locations and names.

"We interviewed everybody," Cassavetes said. "Everything in this movie is really steeped in fact as it relates to chronology and events. Do I know what they were talking about when they were sitting in the car? No. Do I know what kind of party it was? Well, kind of. But did I know what they were saying during those moments? No. So you have to make it up. And you make it up through educated guesses through research and intuition.

"There's a certain degree of satisfaction in getting closer to the truth. Maybe you don't arrive at it, but trying to get closer to something that's somewhat real is a little bit satisfying."

Foster (who played Angel in the last "X-Men" movie) portrays the junkie half-brother of the Markowitz-inspired character. He spent several days with meth addicts to research his role.

"I just went in and was a quiet witness to this world. I passed out because I was just drinking my coffee and a lot of it," Foster said. "And these kids were going for days and days and days. That's what I was focused on was this lifestyle of see it, want it, take it. And fill the hole, fill the hole, fill the hole."

"Alpha Dog" seems to be as much about youth and drug culture as it is about absentee parents — they're portrayed as too drunk, self-absorbed or otherwise occupied to care that their children are heading off the deep end.

"I'm not trying to say that these parents were at fault, even tough it may seem that way when you see the film," Cassavetes said. "We all recognize this cross-section of society, and yet our media never reflects something that's actually going on. Sure, we had movies about African American gangsters and people that are tough, but the whole privileged youth cross-section that are acting like gangsters — it's producing some pretty odd results. And this is just one of the results that it's producing."

Timberlake, in his first big role in a widely released movie, convincingly plays a mentally and morally vacant associate of the character based on Hollywood. (He gets in one of the film's best lines before a gleeful toke: "Smokin' weeeeeed.")

Cassavetes had considered the pop star for the lead role in his last movie, "The Notebook." He ended up picking Ryan Gosling for that part, but determined Timberlake would work in "Alpha Dog."

"He's just infuriating, that (guy) is good at everything," Cassavetes said. "He's like Travolta. Remember when John was young, he just moved good, and you felt good being around him. He's just easy and he's funny."

Foster said the other young actors were skeptical of Timberlake before filming. "He writes great music, he's a great dancer, he's a great performer, that's all we know of him. So of course, as a gang of guys who are like we do this for a living, this is what we're after, I think there was definitely some hesitance about it."

"But the second that dude walked into the gym with us (for pre-shoot bonding), it was on," Foster said. "What blew us away: He doesn't roam with a posse, he's not a diva. ... You just like to watch him. Justin Timberlake's a movie star. No question about it. You just want to watch the guy. He just has that thing."

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asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson wouldn't name his kid Jesse James.

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