Nick Cassavetes’ writing and direction in Alpha Dog is a mix of documentary style and gritty cautionary tale (likewise Bully by Larry Clark). Alpha Dog manages to display an absurdist sense of humor that makes it more disturbing. Hirsch's distanced performance helps to blur the boundaries between the gangster-poseur and the real crook, unveiling a phoniness that adds a chameleon-like quality to Hirsch's range.
And much more chaste but very funny is Hirsch's interaction with Christina Ricci (Trixie) in Speed Racer (2008) by the Wachowski Brothers, a deliriously visual car ride saturated in febrile colours and stroboscopic effects. The anime-styled characterizations are based on the Japanese manga racer Mach GoGoGo adapted in the '60s in its American version.
Speed is a wholesome, starry-eyed racing hero who refuses Royalton Industries' tempting offer and determines to win a futuristic automobile race. His girlfriend is the cheerful and kitschy-looking Trixie.
Speed: But when I'm in a T-180, I don't know, everything just makes sense.
Trixie: So are you saying this doesn't make sense?
Speed: Okay, this makes sense too.
Curiously, in this driving scene, Hirsch comes off more flirtatious than the ultra-girly Christina, which proves how much Speed is into her; although his official passion is driving, Trixie drives him more than crazy. Speed promises Trixie he'll hold her in his arms and kiss her in front of multitudes if he wins the gizmobiles Prix: "Maybe at the end of some big race, when I pull into Victory Lane... I scoop you up and kiss you, with thousands of flashbulbs going off."
It's the subtle touch of Hirsch, when he leans and kisses the girl, that we file in our mental archives, that image freezes and never disappears.
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