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Created Jul 08, 2012 02:34AM PST • Edited Oct 03, 2015 06:07PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Oliver Stone loves making drug-trade movies, war movies and especially drug war movies. So a California drug war makes an ideal subject for his obsessions. Savages – the title flaunts its nihilistic appeal – fills the bill. Speaking of flaunting, Stone’s movie sports rich ingredients but never rises to more than pulp fiction. Pulp fiction? Hell yes. It’s even got Travolta in it.

   Unfortunately the expensive cast doesn’t reach greatness, Benicio Del Toro’s bad guy extraordinaire excepted. Villains drive action movies and his drives this one over-the-top, a good thing as far as nihilistic entertainment goes. But it’s not enough to carry the movie as a whole.

   So what have we got here?

   Stone cowrote the quintessential Florida drug war movie. Savages ain’t no Scarface, but it’s still damn impressive entertainment. It may not be everything you want, but sometimes you get what you need.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Taylor Kitsch is more a presence than a thespian. With a face just this side of pretty and an imposing physicality, he’s a guy you want to like and that girls like to love. But his line readings aren’t sharp or on the beat, so he’s best in an ensemble setting.

   Aaron Johnson plays a stoner Kick-Ass type, a not entirely macho guy who ultimately mans up.

   Blake Lively’s O between them is also likable, albeit not especially sharp or gorgeous. Bodacious, yes. Sweet, absolutely. Thus she impresses like her two on-screen lovers: very good in the role but not great.

   Benicio Del Toro – a Mexican Oddjob with a taste for his own product – provides the movie’s main tension. Everyone else are poseurs, including Salma Hayek as his Cleopatra Kingpin boss.

   Poseurs are often good for comic relief, which comes primarily from John Travolta’s crooked DEA officer.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

   Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

   Blake Lively

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

   Salma Hayek

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

   Benicio Del Toro is really great and John Travolta is very good

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Luxurious settings and occasionally effective hard-boiled dialog give Savages an icy allure that only goes so far. Its heavily surreal circoreality ultimately does it in, making the story more pulpy than profound.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Stone remains a consumate filmmaker. The bastard.

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music OK 2.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.5

    Being an Oliver Stone drug war movie, you know there’s going to be torture and that tools will be involved. Fortunately Stone flies an explicitness level below Scarface, suggesting that Brian De Palma was the freak who turned that drug war movie into a snuff film. (But that’s a topic for another review.)

    That said, savage violence does occur. Eyes will be averted.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Savage 4.0

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.8

    While the movie is balderdash, it does have one salutatory implication. Removing pot from the illicit drug trade would put a serious cashflow kink in the finances of the bad guys.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.5

23. Biological Glib 1.5

24. Physical Glib 1.3