Saturday 22 September 2012

MOVIE REVIEW: SAVAGES (15)


"HIT & MISS"
+++
Savages is a crime thriller film Directed by Oliver Stone (same guy that brought us Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 2010). It centres two marijuana growers Ben & Chon, they face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their girlfriend. Its Starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, John Travolta, Demian Bichir, Joaquin Cosio, Emile Hirsch, Sandra Echeverria, Joel David Moore, Trevor Donovan, Gillian Zinser + many more...
.
#FilmFact: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Garrett Hedlund & James Franco were considered to play Ben.
.
#FilmFact: Uma Thurman was cast as Paqu, O's mother but her scene were cut from the movie.
.
Tweet & Follow the writer of this blog @sliderbee
.
THE REVIEW:
Here we have a 130 minutes long movie based on a novel by Don Winslow. Before i pick out some points I must say...Savages is exciting to look at through the trailer, but not so much the finished product. There are unexplained plot holes and the leading pack doesn't exactly fit right.                                                                                                     Questions start arising and interest start to fizzle away when one cant understand why the lead characters are the way they are. 2 guys (Chon & Ben) are the best weed growers in California & 1 girl (Ophelia)  who is just cute & blonde enough to be happily sticking around for the guys to take turns in taking her to bed. For the audience to be able to believe, they must have visual evidence of why the men are willing to do anything for this girl and to what end. The action scene are entertaining, the violence is high but that's what you expect in a movie like this. It wasn't over the top, Mr Stone got that part right. More action would have been better and less of the useless acting. Tortures, emotionless killings & glorifying of drugs are what Savage is all about, its just too bad the director couldnt combine everything to a masterpiece. This storyline & setting deserved much more.

Problem with the cast is that some have been chosen because of how they look and not so much their acting skills. I was impressed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson's character Ben. He shows his maturity & development since Kick Ass. I for one (and most the men out there) loved to look at O (Lively) on screen, she just didn't have all the skills to connect with the audience. Her acting was average and her voice over throughout takes a choke hold on the whole experience making it a little uncomfortable having her tell the story.  My #StarOfTheShow award will have to shared between Dennis (Travolta) & Lado (del Toro). Both characters were a joy to watch in their elements, their acting experiences set them levels apart from the young "talent". Elena Sanchez (Hayek) was also believable.

Overall, the cons outweigh the pros.
STAR RATINGS OUT OF 5:  3
+++
ONE FAVOURITE MOMENT IN THE FILM:
The last 20 minutes.
(if you loved another moment in the film, please feel free to share it with ME in the comments section.)
TRAILER: