Savages FILM REVIEW

Savages Review


RATING
4/5 ; A good blend of action, violence and disturbed characters. Overall a fun watch with a good plot and only minor irritations along the way.

INFO
2012 film from director Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers, Platoon), starring among others; John Travolta, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Blake Lively and Taylor Kitsch.

Set in sunny California, the film blends the hippie peace and love stoner side of drugs with the extreme violence, deals gone badly, hijacking and kidnapping well in the form of two main characters. The two leads Ben (Aaron Taylor Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) are two friends joined in their love for good marijuana and for the beautiful Ophelia “O” (Blake Lively).

The pair’s drug enterprise is one of the best in the business and so is rapidly attracting attention for the “savage” criminal underworld, which is looking to muscle their way into a good thing. The film centers around the lengths Chon and Ben will go to protect what they have and get out alive.

CAST & CREW
Director
Oliver Stone
Writers
Shane Salerno, Don Winslow, Oliver Stone
Cast
Aaron Taylor Johnson, Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch, John Travolta, Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, Emile Hirsch
For more info go to IMDB

REVIEW
The film, narrated by Ophelia “O”, is for some parts clever and others slightly frustrating. The plot is generally very good and there are some excellent action scenes. For the purpose of this review I will start with what I didn’t like and finish with the good stuff.

The film opens with some beautiful shots of the California coast and the waves crashing in, which is very nice but the script narrated over the shots, whilst setting the scene, is very wishy washy (yes pun intended). There must have been a better way to tell the back-story of how Ben and Chon met and dreamt up their marijuana growing and distributing business. Even if the script was changed, that alone would have improved the film.

Another thing I dislike with this film is towards the end. As with previous reviews, trying desperately to review rather than spoil, there is a sequence towards the end of the film where the story is rewound with “O” narrating something along the lines of that could have been the way it happened but…. YUCK is what I have to say about that. Could the director and writers not decide how they wanted it all to play out? I have no idea why this made the final cut, but I can say it doesn’t work. They should have brought the story to its conclusion and included the alternate ending in special features if they felt it was relevant or made a decision one way or another.

Ok so on to the good parts. Despite the silly rewind section the ending isn’t spoiled. I hate watching a film that has an ending which frustrates me, it ruins the whole film. See the film “Knowing” from 2009 if you want a prime example of an average to good film spoiled by an awful ending.

Other plus points are the action scenes. With cars exploding, drugs stolen, people set on fire and shot point blank by “cops” this film will not disappoint and also shows some truly SAVAGE deeds, living up to its name.

Aaron Taylor Johnson and Taylor Kitsch are good leads and work well in the story as two sides of the same coin. The love interest Blake Lively comes away with some credibility. I haven’t seen her in much so won’t comment in general, but she does a reasonable job of playing her role.

With the younger three out of the way, the real good performances come from the older cast members. Salma Hayek as Elena is menacing but vulnerable as the head of the enemy drug cartel. She plays a strong woman running a ruthless business but is also conflicted due to her family relationships. John Travolta plays her almost the same character on the opposite side of the law. An agency man with a sick wife and kids out for himself but also trying to not get drowned in the river of shit the agency asks him to wade through. He does the whole slightly wired crazy man well and I have like most of his recent performances, this one included.

By far the best in this film is Benicio Del Toro. He plays a merciless bastard of a character called Lado. He is sick and evil and the most savage and lifelike of all the characters in this film.

There are various conversations that take place throughout the film in the form of an internet video call. The ringtone for these calls is brilliant. It is also used as a ringtone by some of the characters and on a weird sub note seems to be ominous as well as sounding child like. Although my fiancée will not thank me for saying it, it sounds like a ringtone for an evil clown calling. I don’t know why but it is a good addition.
Savages Ringtone

I also like the sugar skull type masks used in the film which I think fit with the how the film shows the more shocking scenes. I warn you there are people set on fire and decapitated. As shocking as these scenes could be to some, I don’t think the film goes over the top, or shows something, which could be disturbing, in a way which isn’t necessary. It’s not nice but fits.

Overall I’d recommend this film. Watch it for yourself and let me know in the comments below what you thought of it.
I will be doing another film review for next Friday so keep an eye out if you enjoy reading them. Also feel free to subscribe to this blog and comment with your opinions.

Thanks for reading!