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It strikes me that Oliver Stone is best known for two types of movies: the politically-charged and slickly-intellectual (Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK) and the visceral (The Doors, Natural Born Killers). There’s some overlap, of course, and some films that exemplify both (like Platoon). But his latest, Savages, based on the novel by Don Winslow, falls strongly into the latter camp. While it contains an underlying criticism of the U.S. approach to the drug war, it focuses on the quick, brutal struggle between three young American marijuana growers and a powerful Mexican cartel.
Berkeley-educated botanist Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Afghanistan vet Chon (Taylor Kitsch) grow the best weed in Southern California, if not the world—at least according to their shared girlfriend, the preciously named “O” (Blake Lively), short for Ophelia, who narrates the film. Their success attracts the attention of Mexican cartel boss Elena (Salma Hayek) and her enforcer, Lado (Benicio Del Toro), who makes them an offer they can’t refuse. When they do precisely that, Lado kidnaps O in order to force their compliance, leading to an increasingly bloody series of countermoves and reversals in a contest of wills.
With a juicy setup like that, it’s a shame that the SoCal trio turns out to be so dramatically flat. Johnson gets the most mileage out of an underwritten part, taking Ben from pacifist hippie to flak-jacketed would-be commando, while Kitsch just glowers through the film. He’s had a tough year with duds John Carter and Battleship already, and his performance here isn’t doing him any favors. And while Lively certainly looks the part as a sun-drenched beach goddess, she’s practically emotionally inert, and her breathy narration robs the lyricism from Winslow’s prose.
However, these shortcomings are more than made up for by three full-on crazy showings by Hayek, Del Toro, and John Travolta as a weasely DEA agent who’s playing both sides of the fence. Hayek is all sharp edges and thinly-veiled menace, wonderfully contrasted by Del Toro’s down-and-dirty border-hopping bad guy. It looks like the most fun he’s had since stealing scenes in The Usual Suspects—and Travolta goes toe-to-toe with him in terms of chewing scenery with gusto. Any time the three of them appear on screen, the film crackles with energy.
It’s that energy that carries this film, along with a quick pace and a willingness to punctuate with unnerving violence. Stone isn’t aiming for the head here, but lower. I found that distinction most evident in the film’s climax, which deviates strongly from the original novel in a way that I didn’t believe was earned, but it left me walking out of the theater with an emotional charge that I might not have had otherwise.
Savages proved to confound a lot of my expectations. I liked the leads a lot less than I thought I would, and I loved the villains more. I didn’t get the kind of thoughtful exercise that I usually expect from Oliver Stone, but I got a kick to the gut that left me buzzing all the way home. That blend of what works and what doesn’t leaves the film, in its own unique way, undeniably and enjoyably savage.
