Savages
[youtube=http://youtu.be/KC2zbOwbeEs]
Tagline: This Summer, love gets savage.
It’s all too easy to forget in this era of CGI and 3-D that filmmakers such as Oliver Stone are still plying their trade. Granted, 2010’s long-awaited Wall Street follow up fizzled, and the likes of W. and World Trade Center weren’t troubling Oscar either. But it appears as if he’s hit the jackpot with Savages.
Best friends Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) share a passion for producing some of the most potent marijuana ever seen but are also equally enchanted by Ophelia (Blake Lively). All is going swimmingly until the Mexican Baja Cartel (Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro) rocks up and makes them an offer they can’t refuse. Can Ben and Chon, with the help of John Travolta’s slippery DEA agent, fend off the incoming threat?
Whatever the eventual answer, the critics had a fine time finding out in this adaptation of Don Winslow’s best-selling book. “Savages offers nothing more nor less than a rude blast of cinematic energy, invigorating in its foulness and refreshing in its lack of self-importance,” trumpets Variety (also noting that “the disreputable Oliver Stone of old makes a largely welcome reappearance”). “Stone summons up many of the visual and aural tropes of his creatively assaultive works of 15 or so years ago, to mostly strong effect,” concludes The Hollywood Reporter. And the Associated Press’s summation is equally positive: “Savages is an enjoyably gratuitous romp, but with something to say.”