areatw 'Savages' is a thoroughly unlikeable film with a poor plot, weak script and some seriously bad acting. From the opening scene alone I got the impression that this was going to be yet another pretentious piece of garbage, and I was right.The narration is highly annoying, as are virtually all of the characters. It's more of a comedy than a thriller and it can be especially difficult to take Blake Lively's acting seriously. There's a few decent action scenes but that's as far as the positives go as far as I'm concerned. I hated everything else about this film.

johnnyboyz "Savages" has very little that is profound to say about both drugs and the narcotics trade, save that they can land you in a lot of trouble and that its universes are inhabited by some very dangerous people. The film is fast, loose and kinetic; its runtime clocks in at over two hours, despite not feeling like it. It is extraordinarily visceral and wallows in postmodernism to the extent that cathartic events towards the end are quite literally rewound by the narrator so as to depict them in a different way. It is also somewhat of a generic film – at one point, a character utters a ridiculously clichéd line along the lines of "smoke that....", before dropping an f-bomb and making an impossible shot with a scoped rifle unrealistic to the circumstances.Quite, this is not for the crowd that enjoyed "Traffic" – its multi-stranded nature; insistence on dipping in and out of a varied glut of characters' fates and very airy, almost dreamlike aesthetic, as the camera waves in and out of compositions and has fun with focus and depth of field to put across a sense of feeling to the audience, is about all it has in common with said film."Savages" is told from the perspective of Blake Lively's Ofelia, whose name is abridged to merely "O" and who spends most of the time away from the very people whose actions she is telling us about and the places within which these things happen. She lives in Laguna Beach, California, with Chon (Kitsch) and Ben (Taylor-Johnson) – two young-ish men who are to the local marijuana trade what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were to computers and microchips. We are told Shaun fought in the Middle East, and buries his scars with weed and blunt sexual intercourse with O, but this is not revisited. Both he and his dreadlocked accomplice, we sense, are too young to be competent enough to be running the operation (which extends as far as Africa and South East Asia) they do. They unrealistically possess access to a "Bourne"-like command centre; maintain an uneasy relationship with John Travolta's DEA agent and have an endless supply of cannabis.O's background sees her, like so many people who get into marijuana, come from a family made broken by the lack of a father figure – something which saw her tumble out into the Californian counter culture and into a universe of hedonism and self-gratification. The abruptness of her name derives from a hatred of high-culture; reading and intellect, something synonymous with her type, in that it derives from a William Shakespeare text, and that cannot be tolerated... At one point, Shaun perfectly sums up the three's philosophy when he reminds Ben: "You were dead the second you were born." "Welcome to paradise" O tells us as things open, but we then witness the threesome proceed to dull their brains and numb their senses through smoking in order to pass the time - in spite of living under the roaring sun; on a fabulous beach and with more than enough recreation in the form of cycling; surfing and otherwise to fill their hours. We have all frequented places that offer these things, at least once in our lifetimes, either in the capacity of holiday makers or otherwise – at no point, as we occupied these places of such beauty, did it occur to us that stupefying our minds with illicit substances might be rather a good idea.The trio are so good at what they do, although we are unsure as to O's actual purpose, that they attract the attention of a bigger, broader Mexican cartel based just south of the border going through its own fiscal problems. Offering to move in and thus soak up some of the action, the gang, run by Selma Hayek, are aghast when Ben and Shaun say "no" – something which kicks off the kidnapping of O and forces the two supporting males into a spiral of blood; guts; guns and grief. But much of this has the film sound as if it is better than it is.For what it is, "Savages" is bouncy and energetic, and it involves us enough to want to observe as to where things venture. Oliver Stone, a versatile and often very impressive director, has essentially made the Mexico-United States border narcotics thriller for this generation: the Skype calls; the keyboard warfare and the sub-Call of Duty sniper fights. The characters are young and hip – the expert on the hacking and computer data side of things even looks as if he fell out of an episode of "The O.C." When the time comes to see two stalwarts such as Travolta and del Toro share the screen, in what is a fairly intense dialogue-driven sequence, it feels as if Stone is pausing in order to provide those who can remember a little further back with a moment for themselves.And so we come away from the film unable to either love or hate it – it would not be a misstep to recommend it, but to place it against some of Stone's other work and other films on the subject matter would be a mistake. Where "Savages" ends up, that is to say what propels its final act in the form of a counter-kidnap, might very well have occurred at the hour mark is the best exemplar of its structural problems. Films big in both scope and scale of the contemporary crime thriller sort, as two sides appear to constantly rub one another the wrong way, often have the potential to be truly memorable: "Heat" and "The Usual Suspects" taught us that. "Savages" is not one of these instances, but that is not to say it is of no worth.

grantss Nothing special. Plot just rambles along, with a few holes and inconsistencies in it. At no stage do you feel engaged by or empathy with the lead characters. Just intriguing enough to keep you interested. Oliver Stone's direction is solid though, especially considering the script and some of the actors he had to work with.Movies is marred by the lead performances, all by relatively unknown/B- grade actors. Blake Lively and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are out of their depth in the movie - both performances are weak and unconvincing. Taylor Kitsch is mostly OK though. Supporting cast is where the big names are: Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta. Hayek and Del Toro give the most compelling performances of the movie - gritty and convincing. Travolta is irritating, trying too hard to be smooth and cool.

Leofwine_draca What we have here is a Mexican cartel drug thriller from director Oliver Stone. What could go wrong with that? The film is dripping with sun-bleached style, and there's plenty of violence and sex in the mix. A shame, then, that the script is so very predictable and makes huge and continuous mistakes throughout, leaving this a failure of a movie.The first problem with the film is the entire lack of likable characters. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch are the most vapid and unlikeable leads ever; they follow in the line of the usual pothead dummy heroes (as in American ULTRA and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) and I hated both of them from the very beginning. Blake Lively's character is rubbish, a typical air-head blonde, and the viewer is forced to sit through her extended screen time for no little reason other than to pad the story out.Which leads me into the running time: this is way too long for what should be a tense and exciting thriller. Lots of it feels repetitive or boring. There are a few action highlights, but the overall mood is artificial and long-winded. John Travolta gives the best performance in his minor role as a corrupt drugs agent, but check out Salma Hayek's cartel boss; she's surprisingly terrible. And I'm still not sure what to make of Benicio del Toro's character, and I don't think the scriptwriters knew what to do with him either...