Savages - Movie Review

Priya and I just watched an Oliver Stone movie called Savages and we want to give it a review. It was made in 2012 and it is described as a crime thriller movie. It was available to watch for free using On Demand with our cable package so we decided to give it a shot. I was the one who actually picked so everything following this is really my fault. I picked it because it was supposed to be a crime thriller and I felt like something a bit more exciting rather than a comedy or a simple action film with stuff blowing up.

The plot surrounds two friends Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). They live in Laguna Beach California and they are rich and successful by growing and selling marijuana. Chon is a former Navy SEAL and he originally smuggled the marijuana seeds out of Afghanistan. Ben is a graduate of UC Berkeley where he studied botany and business. He cultivated the seeds and developed a particularly potent strain of marijuana that leads to them gaining a large international customer base. The other main character who does a lot of the narrating of the story is Ophelia (Blake Lively) who goes by the name O. The strange thing about O is that she is in a romantic relationship with both Chon and Ben and it is not a secret rather it is a polyamorous relationship that all three of them openly participate in. O describes Chon and Ben as two halves that complete each other and provide her with the perfect man. It really is a strange part of the movie and takes some time to get used to.

The trio receives a video from a cartel enforcer Lado (Benicio del Toro) who works for Elena (Salma Hayek) the head of a dangerous Mexican drug cartel. The video shows several severed heads and a chainsaw, and demands a meeting. The cartel offers a business partnership that neither Chon nor Ben want to accept. Chon is much more aware than Ben of the threat that the cartel poses to them so he tries to explain to Ben the steps they should take to protect themselves and show the cartel that they cannot be bullied or pushed around. But Ben wants to simply get out of the business and go do other things. So they offer to hand over their products and network to the cartel for free so they can get out of the business. But the cartel won’t accept this they want Chon and Ben’s expertise not just their customers so they insist on a partnership. At this point both Chon and Ben realize that a partnership with the cartel is not really a partnership rather it means they would just be working for the cartel who could do whatever they wanted with them. So they decided to make a run for it and go to Indonesia with O for at least a year until the heat from the cartel dies down.

Before they leave Chon and Ben speak to corrupt DEA agent Dennis (John Travolta) who has aided them in their business by keeping the authorities off their trail. He urges them to partner with the cartel. They again refuse. The cartel gets wind that the trio is going to run so Lado and his crew kidnap O. Chon and Ben are notified of O's kidnapping via a video call from Elena, the cartel leader, who threatens to harm O if the two of them do not partner with her.

The movie takes various twists and turns as Chon and Ben try and figure out how to save O’s life. One of the major problems they face in trying to save O is that Elena’s crew includes a traitor who is now working as an insider for Elena’s main competitor in Mexico. This leads to conflicting interests with the members of the cartel that Chon and Ben interact with. Sometimes they are bargaining with Elena and sometimes they are bargaining with the traitor who does not truly want the same thing. Ultimately Chon and Ben discover that Elena has her own daughter who lives in LA. They decide to kidnap Elena’s daughter and offer a straight up trade for O.

They successfully kidnap the daughter and send a video to Elena demanding a trade. The exchange is set to occur in the middle of the desert. Both sides agree to come alone but there are, of course, snipers from both sides hidden in the hills prepared to fire. At this point there seems to be a dramatic finish to the movie but that soon changes as the director and/or writers try to make a weird twist at the end, which if one wants to know I will let them watch the movie for themselves.

So that’s the gist of the movie.

Zach's Review

Now for at least the first 15 minutes of the movie I was very tempted to turn it off and pick a different film to watch. The story takes a while to develop and it is a bit confusing during that time. Plus the strong emphasis on O’s relationship with Chon and Ben is just so weird that it is hard to focus on the rest of the movie. But Priya and I kept watching and by the 25 minute mark I was interested in what was happening and more invested in the story. For the next hour the movie was pretty exciting as the guys tried to save O and O tried to stay alive. Towards the end of the movie when it looked like everything was going to be resolved I was ready to say it was a decent movie, nothing amazing but worth a watch. Then the last 10 to 15 minutes turned into this strange web of events that in my opinion messed everything up. Basically it seemed like the director couldn't decide how to end the movie so he just gave you two different endings at the same time. I was not a fan of this as it didn't really leave you feeling like the movie had actually resolved itself.

I would end up giving this movie a 4 out of 10. About half of it was interesting and half of it was either confusing or boring. For those who like crime thrillers I would say this movie isn't really one of those because while there is a lot of crime and some thrills there just isn't a lot of suspense or mystery, which are things I associate heavily with crime thrillers. It’s the type of movie where after the first 20 minutes or so you as the audience know everything about who is good and who is bad and who is doing what to whom and then you just watch as the characters try and figure it out for themselves. So there really isn't that much suspense for the audience except with how it’s all going to end. Then when you get to the end you find out that there are two endings rather than one and in a way they just cancel each other out. Basically if you have a couple hours to waste and the movie is on cable for free I would say go ahead and watch it if for no other reason than trying to figure out what the whole point of the three person relationship is. But beyond that I wouldn't recommend anyone going out of their way to watch this movie.

Priya's Review

I don’t really have much to say about this movie. It was a Sunday night, there was nothing to do, it was on telly, we watched it. And all I could think about was Jason Mraz every time I saw Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character. 

And I couldn't work out why Selma Hayek was wearing a wig that’s exactly like her natural hair (there’s a scene where it comes off and you just think “Ok… was there a point to wearing it?”). If you have nothing to say about a movie, good or bad, does that ultimately make it good or bad?