Film: Savages (2012)
Cast includes: Blake Lively (The Town), Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights), Aaron Johnson (Nowhere Boy), Benicio Del Toro (Traffic), Selma Hayek (Frida), John Trivolta (Pulp Fiction)
Director: Oliver Stone (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)
Genre: Drama | Thriller | Crime (130 minutes)
It starts with armature video of captives being tortured and brutally murdered. Then O (short for Ophelia) tells us, “Just cause I’m telling you this story doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end of it.” It starts in Laguna Beach… “Ben and Chon’s hole-in-the-wall by the sea… paid for in cash.” O takes us back to the beginning. Ben, “the love of my life,” is a botanist. Chon, the other love of O’s life, is a killer… a war vet. Chon brought back seeds from Afghanistan… the “best cannabis in the world.” Ben used them to create the new best cannabis in the world. With 15 million satisfied customers, business is good. Ben and Chon are totally different… “Chon is cold metal. Ben is wood. Together, they’re one complete man.” Anyway, when they get the video from the Baja Cartel, Ben wants to give them what they want. Chon says, “It’s ours. Why give it away? They’re savages.”
Before the meeting, we have a chance to meet Lado, the cartel’s muscle. Lado’s a “man of many skills,” but they all involve extreme pain and brutal death. When Ben and Chon meet with the cartel, they’re presented with a deal… “Everything stays the same for 3 years. We study your methods and pay you a distribution fee for the Tijuana market.” “You let people think you’re weak… sooner or later, you’re going to have to kill them,” Chon tells Ben. But the cartel isn’t going to take “no” for an answer. “You want us to eat your shit and call it cavier!” Chon is defiant. But they’re persuaded to think it over. Back home, they decide the only way out is to disappear to someplace remote… say, Indonesia. O’s not so happy about this, but she’ll go with her men. She needs one last trip to the mall before they drop off the radar screen. The next time Ben and Chon see O, it’s on a video. She’s already been tortured, and if Ben and Chon don’t give the cartel what they want, Lado’ll start cutting off fingers. So here’s the new deal… the cartel is going to hold O for a year, as insurance. “One year… O won’t make 3 weeks.”
O really is a prima donna… she makes so many demands, they finally let her talk to Elena… the head of the cartel. From here, things start getting ugly. “They took our girl. We’ll do anything to get her back.” The earlier videos of beheadings and other torture were just foreplay. Every violent event seems to lead to another, that’s even more violent and sadistic. Based on a bestselling novel, the movie has so many characters and subplots that it’s not always easy to follow the primary narrative. But eventually, most of the subplots end in brutal death, so that helps us focus. Savages, indeed! Its hyper, over-the-top filmmaking approach not only heightens the brutality, it gives the violence an unreal quality… making it somewhat more palatable. But that said, you may find the violence a bit tiresome after a while. You might not even care who’s alive at the end of it.
2 popped kernels
Violence on steroids… 2 men, one girl, a drug cartel, kidnappings, double-crosses and brutal death
Popcorn Profile
Rated: R (Language, violence, sexual content, crime, drugs)
Audience: Young adults
Distribution: Mainstream wide release
Mood: Neutral
Tempo: Pure adrenalin rush
Visual Style: Computer effects
Character Development: Not that kind of film
Language: True to life
Social Significance: Pure entertainment
