Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel that kidnapped their shared girlfriend.
Oliver Stone's Savages has a lurid, pulpy energy that keeps it watchable, but the plot — two California weed entrepreneurs vs. a Mexican cartel — is fairly conventional crime-thriller territory executed without real distinction. The ensemble cast (Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively, Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek) ranges widely in quality; del Toro is menacing and committed while Lively's narration and performance feel flat. Stone brings his trademark kinetic visual style with saturated colors and aggressive editing, making it above-average cinematographically but not among his best work. The film's biggest weakness is its ending: the 'twist' double-ending feels like a cop-out rather than a bold choice, undermining the dramatic stakes built up throughout. Novelty is low — it covers well-trodden cartel-crime ground without a distinctive enough voice to separate it from the crowd.