Posted By Dave Howlett on March 23, 2013

Throughout his career, Oliver Stone has always loved to examine no less a subject than America itself–its questionable wars (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven And Earth), its controversial leaders (JFK, Nixon, W.), and its monumental excesses (Wall Street, Natural Born Killers, his screenplay for Brian DePalma’s Scarface). 2012′s Savages, with its glossy sheen, hyperactive editing, and stylized gruesomeness, seems to be aimed at fans of that third category (mostly the latter two titles). The result is a twisted, morally corrupt cartoon with a miscast trio at its center and not a lot going on upstairs.

Based on a 2011 novel by Don Winslow, Savages is narrated by O (Blake Lively, of Gossip Girl and Green Lantern), who tells us in the opening minutes of the film that she may not be alive by the end of the story. O lives in an opulent beach house, sharing an open relationship with a duo of mega-successful pot dealers. Chon (Taylor Kitsch, hot off the double disappointment of John Carter and Battleship) is a damaged, squinty-eyed veteran of the conflict in the Middle East. O tells us that while she has orgasms, “he has war-gasms”. On the other hand, Ben (Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson) is the sensitive Yin to Chon’s killer-cool Yang, with a penchant for donating large portions of his money to international charities for children. The two pals are so organized, they have a cyber-specialist (Emile Hirsch) laundering their ill-gotten gains, and a corrupt federal agent (John Travolta) in their pocket. The pot grown and distributed by the two is so potent, we’re told, that it soon catches the attention of a ruthless Mexican criminal cartel headed by the sadistic, calculating Elena (Salma Hayek). The cartel demands a piece of the business, and when Ben and Chon refuse, Elena’s nastiest enforcer (a magnificently moustachioed Benicio Del Toro) kidnaps O, promising to return her after three years of their cooperation in a shared drug enterprise. The guys play along at first to keep O safe, but realizing they can’t live without her, they hatch a plan to raise enough cash to buy her back. This will require them to become as wily and murderous as their foes, even as Elena, estranged from her own young daughter, attempts to become a twisted sort of mother figure to her prisoner.

It’s tough to see Savages as anything but a pointless exercise in brutality and (supposedly) morally-excusable bad behavior on the part of its heroes. Stone wants us to feel like Ben, Chon, and O weren’t really hurting anybody with their pot business, at least until the cartel forced them to cheat, steal, and kill, all of which is justified by O’s kidnapping. For the battle-hardened Chon, it’s pretty much business as usual, and he has an entire network of loyal army buddies who are all too happy to pitch in. Soft-hearted Ben is more conflicted, but we’re supposed to believe that he loves O so much, any sacrifice–even that of his own soul–is worth it to get her back. A lot of blood is shed on both sides, a lot of people do a lot of bad things, and the conclusion is a massive, obnoxious copout, a non-ending that allows the narrating O to hit a Cosmic Rewind Button that doesn’t do much more than eat up screen time in an already-lengthy movie. Stone crafts his tale as a brightly-coloured, quick-cutting music video, wallowing in the story’s depravity but packaging it as slick, cutting-edge wish fulfilment. The leads’ lifestyle is presented as a cool fantasy of decadence, and when everything goes bad they’re empowered to engage in video-game style violence to set things right. Lively, Kitsch, and Johnson don’t make much of an impact; the squeaky clean trio lack the edge the story demands. Hayek, Del Toro, and Travolta are better, but they’re playing pretty broad cartoons. They seem to be the only ones who know how silly Savages, even with all its sex, drugs, and bloodshed, really is.

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Categories: Movies, Reviews
Tags: Aaron Johnson, Battleship, Benicio Del Toro, Blake Lively, Born On The Fourth Of July, Brian DePalma, Don Winslow, Emile Hirsch, Gossip Girl, Green Lantern, Heaven And Earth, JFK, John Carter, John Travolta, Kick-ass, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, Oliver Stone, Platoon, Salma Hayek, Savages, Scarface, Taylor Kitsch, W., Wall Street