By Morgan P Salvo
Just because Oliver Stone makes movies look cool doesn’t
mean he always makes cool movies. Savages
falls somewhere in between cool and ludicrous. Okay let’s just say it has it
moments. Depicting overtly dark secrecy to over-the-top camp, Savages delivers a cartoonish vision of
a deadly violent subject matter.
When Stone isn’t making some valiant statement in a lavish
production (JFK or Wall Street) he tears his style down to
fit his concept of bare minimum. Here he dishes out a pretty standard story
about drug dealing and a hostage situation, but doesn’t make us believe much of
anything through the black and white to color storytelling, non linear editing
and different film stock.
The plot focuses on a pair of drug dealers: two stoners who
have been friends forever. One’s a botanist genius Ben (Aaron Johnson) the
other a military dude Chon (Taylor Kitsch) doing tour after tour in Afghanistan.
They make the best weed on the planet (smuggled in from Afghanistan) and have
built up an empire that on one hand does good deeds like helping out Africa and
supplying medical marijuana but on the other hand supports dirty drug dealers. They
both love and live with “O” (Blake Lively) the chick who loves them both right
back and whose story we get to hear recanted. They all reside in Laguna Beach
CA in a blissful love triangle made in heaven, that is until the evil drug
cartel in Mexico wants a piece of the action. O is kidnapped to get Ben and
Chon to comply with their demands.What they are asking for is equivalent to having
a Ben and Jerry aisle in Wal-Mart It’s
easy to comprehend the bad guys won’t play fair. The stoners do not go for the
plan and the cartel reciprocates by resorting to… umm… savagery and violence.
There’s no doubt as to why Stone made this pic as it centers
on the ramifications of cannabis, a favorite indulgence of his. Stone has a way
to suck you in with mood and color but he’s frustrating because just when you
think his morality is going one way he stumps you. This happened with his bio-pics
W and Nixon: you expected him to ream them a new one from his political
leanings but instead he was sympathetic to their plights. In this case with
blood spewing ultra-violence Stone paints his easel with stupidity instead of
insight. There are a ton of messages to read into this mess of a movie, like
while a war rages in the Middle East there’s an even bigger one at home, and the
war on drugs isn’t a war at all it’s just police and political corruption, but
the main implication is no one can be trusted as evidenced by the double
dealing, backstabbing and requisite graphic depiction of blood guts torture and
mayhem. We’re all familiar with the term “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”
and yet that’s all the characters in this movie seem to do.
Performance wise it’s a gold mine and the best reason to
watch this flick. Benicio Del Toro takes
on one of his more entertainingly funny roles as a crazed hit-man who runs a Mexican
landscaping cleanup crew, and should change his last name to Del Evil or Del Knucklehead
depending on the scene. It’s hard to look at the portly Travolta the same since
the tabloid massage accusations but he’s a great whiny slime-ball. Selma Hayek
is at her diabolical nuttiest as the wicked witch with a black heart of gold. Then
there’s Kitsch, who besides having a really bad last name, is unrecognizable
from his last outing as John Carter.
Blake Lively is, well, Blake Lively and finally gets a lot of screen time even
if she doesn’t take off her top. But Aaron Johnson is the guy to watch in all movies
from now on. I didn’t even put it together till way later that this is the same
guy from Kick-Ass! and Nowhere Boy (playing John Lennon) - this
dude is a true chameleon.
Savages
Starring Aaron
Johnson, Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro
Directed by Oliver Stone
Directed by Oliver Stone
Rated R
2 ½ stars
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