There are two kinds of Oliver Stone movies. There are the
politically charged dramas like JFK
and Platoon and the adrenaline fueled
Tony Scott-style pictures like Natural
Born Killers and U-Turn. Savages falls squarely into the latter
category though it touches on the hot button topics of the war on drugs.
The lead character is O (Blake Lively), short for Ophelia, a
blonde bombshell living in the idyllic Southern California community of Laguna
Beach. With echoes of Sunset Boulevard, O ominously proclaims in
the opening narration that just because she's telling the story doesn't mean
she's alive at the end. O is in the middle of an unconventional love triangle
between Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson). Chon is a war veteran who
returned home from Afghanistan with a particularly potent strain of marijuana. Ben
is the hippy-dippy type. He took those seeds and grew them into a lucrative network
and uses the profits to build solar-powered schools in Third World nations.
Ben is the brains and Chon is the brawn, which will be
called upon when their operation piques the interest of a Mexican drug cartel
headed by Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek). The cartel is looking to absorb Ben and
Chon's entire network on their own terms, no negotiations. To show how serious
they are, they make sure to send the boys a grisly video of decapitated heads.
Ben and Chon still turn down their offer leading Elena to order the abduction
of O at the hands of her brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio del Toro). Serving as
the monkey wrench in everyone's plans is John Travolta as Dennis, a crooked DEA
agent willing to deal with any side as long as he profits.
Savages is a sun-drenched
clash between the privileged paradise of Orange County with the crime and
violence that has plagued Mexico for years. There's the execution of a cocaine
lawyer in his ultra-modern, suburban home and the torture of another man whose
eyeball sickeningly dangles from the socket.
The segments following the ménage a trois work because the
parts were cast well though Blake Lively doesn't have the emotional weight to
handle some of the film's deeper moments. In her defense, it's doubtful any
actress could credibly spout lines like, "I
have orgasms. He has 'wargasms.'" 2012 should have been Taylor
Kitsch's breakout year, but it didn't turn out that way following the bombing
of John Carter and Battleship. While Savages did lukewarm business, it did give Kitsch his best role of
all his recent pictures. He and Aaron Johnson breathe life into their on-screen
friendship, making it feel lived in and believable. Johnson's role as Ben is a
marked difference from the nerdy fanboy in Kick-Ass.
Yet, the more interesting moments are when the film follows
the lives of the drug cartel. Benicio del Toro's Lado is a frightening figure
that belies his bushy mustache and odd pompadour mullet. He and his men slip in
and out of wealthy neighborhoods disguised as gardeners. Just as O and her boys
view the cartel as savages, Lado sees them the same way due to their three-way
relationship and their American sense of entitlement. Despite being a merciless
executioner, he's more offended that his sons are lazy and his daughter has
become a glorified valley girl. As for Elena, she assumed control following the
murders of her husband and sons. She has a daughter who wants little to do with
her ("She is ashamed of me and I am
proud of her for it."). It's no wonder that Elena forges an unlikely
maternal bond with O whose own mother (Uma Thurman in a role excised from the
final cut) is off globe-trotting with her latest husband. Hayek is gorgeous and
plays the role as if she stepped right out of a Telemundo soap opera.
Savages is a
handsomely shot, but wildly uneven action-thriller. Old hands like Travolta,
Hayek, and Benicio del Toro do most of the heavy lifting through a script
bustling with tangled subplots until the movie fizzles out after a trick
ending.
Rating: ** (*****)
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