SAVAGES Wow, another terrible movie from Oliver Stone. Didn't see that one coming.
I FINALLY STARTED WATCHING The Wire. It's a great. All the characters in Baltimore's drug trade are portrayed with empathy and care. Savages is Oliver Stone's attempt to say something about the drug war. It's the opposite of The Wire. It's hideously terrible.
The plot concerns two nice Southern California pot growers (Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson) attempting to rescue their shared girlfriend (Blake Lively) from an evil Mexican drug cartel. Just to make absolutely sure you know what's happening in every scene, Lively's narration plays over pretty much the whole movie, much of which is full of squicky sexual and racial politics—the Latino characters are cartoony sadists, and there's some rape-y stuff too, because, hey, rape.
As the final flourish of awful, Savages doesn't even work as exploitation. The sex, violence, and overwrought drama are weighed down by Stone's self-seriousness—he seems to think that because he's willing to show us a guy with an eyeball hanging out of his face, he has something to say. He doesn't. Savages is empty. I'm gonna go watch The Wire now.
130 min. | Rated R
Director: Oliver Stone
Writer: Shane Salerno, Don Winslow and Oliver Stone
Producer: Oliver Stone, Moritz Borman and Eric Kopeloff
Cast: Blake Lively, John Travolta, Aaron Johnson, Benicio Del Toro, Emile Hirsch, Salma Hayek, Taylor Kitsch and Demain Bichir
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