In which we learn the perils of being both a hippie and a drug-dealer...
Oliver Stone had probably the best run of any modern filmmaker for a while there. From Salvador to Nixon, Stone put out an increasingly eclectic and bold filmography - each time pushing the limits of narrative filmmaking right up to its breaking point. And then, as these things tend to do, he sort of fizzled out. Although he never really made bad movie in the last decade (in my eyes, at least), there was no denying that something was missing. His wild, freewheeling style was too reigned-in; his movies began to look like everyone else’s. With Savages, he captures a little bit of that old mojo back, and - although never really reaching the heights of JFK or Born on the Fourth of July - turns out a wicked little crime thriller.
“Savage” - it’s a word often used by one culture to deride and put-down another - for a variety of reasons, whether warranted or not. In Oliver Stone’s Savages, people on all sides of the drug trade refer to each other as savage at one point or another - each side perpetrating some sort of barbaric act by the time the film closes. Working with co-screenwriters Shane Salerno and Don Winslow (who’s also adapting from his novel), Stone crafts a sharp screenplay exploring the things that make the world (or at least the drug world) go round: sex, drugs and murder.
Ophelia “O” Sage is a young girl living high in a very Bohemian-lifestyle with her two drug-dealing boyfriends, Ben and Chon. But they’re not your typical dealers: Ben’s a Berkeley grad in business and botany who’s set up a marijuana ring that runs much like your typical upstart business. He even uses the money he makes to fund charities and trips to Africa and other needy parts of the world. For the most part Ben and his enterprise avoid the usual, violent pratfalls we associate with drug dealers, but the few times he requires muscle he calls on his buddy Chon, a former Navy SEAL and Irag War vet. Everything goes swimmingly until the Mexican drug cartels catch wind of how much money they’re pulling in, and offer to expand their operation. Ben and Chon decide that now’s the time to bow out of the weed trade, and politely decline the cartel’s offer. Problem is, the offer on the table wasn’t really an offer, so the cartel kidnaps O and forces Ben and Chon to play along, pulling them far deeper in than they ever thought they would go.
Savages serves as kind of a showcase for a new generation of acting talent against the old guard. Several of the “Next Big Thing” * actors pop up here, primarily Aaron Johnson as Ben and Taylor Kitsch as Chon. It would be easy to take a role like Ben and make him grating, but Johnson plays him emphatically enough as a smart kid caught up in a world he has no business being part of. Ben’s the type who had dreadlocks in college, wears organic cotton shirts and practices Buddhism. Chon’s the complete opposite - a burnt-out war veteran, all hard edges and smoldering intensity. Kitsch is maybe a little too pretty for the role, but hides it well enough with a performance that feels like a powder-keg rolling towards a fire - you’re just waiting for him to explode. I feel that, with a few more movies under his belt, Kitsch could grow into a fine young actor. Like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp before him, he just needs a few more years.
Elder statesmen Benicio Del Toro and John Travolta bring the experience of age to the picture - and compared to the male leads, the difference is notable. Johnson and Kitsch often come off as over-serious and po-faced (a little too worried with being taken as “serious” actors (understandably, given the pedigree of their costars)), while Travolta and Del Toro have fun yukking it up - capturing the gravitas of their characters while also not afraid to have a few laughs along the way. Del Toro is especially menacing in his role as Lado, one of the cartel’s number one enforcers. Del Toro never goes in for scenery chewing - I’m pretty sure he never even raises his voice during the whole picture - but is a thoroughly terrifying presence throughout. Travolta doesn’t get as much screen time with his role as manipulative DEA agent Dennis, but is an extremely important figure to the overall narrative. He has a tendency nowadays to overact in everything, but he’s in just enough scenes here to make his kooky mannerisms work.
Blake Lively plays O, who’s really the central character of the whole movie. Lively is still an unproven talent in film, but if 2010’s The Town gave us anything, it was her truly remarkable performance. Fortunately, the actress is quite, er… lively in the role (sorry) - one that could easily be seen as petty and trite, but Lively’s overall warmth and humanity endear us to her character. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Salma Hayek as the cold, calculating leader of the Mexican cartel, Elena Sanchez. Elena is a great character, the wife of the former drug boss who inherited the business when her husband died. Hayek is a fantastic villain without ever being especially villainous - everything she does, she does so to ensure the safety of her family’s future.
The whole film serves as a reflection on what compels people to act in savage ways, and if you look at every horrible thing the characters inflict on each other here, you realize that you can trace it back to their loved ones. Ben and Chon care only about O getting back, Elena cares only about her few surviving children, Dennis cares for his wife dying of cancer… Even the most despicable character Lado does what he does to provide for his family. Having the brunt of the story revolve around two friends trying to get their mutual lover back serves as the perfect vehicle to explore this, the savage things we do for love.
The film is not without its faults, however: although never boring, the plot meanders far too much. Any scene that doesn’t directly involve Ben, Chon or O should have been left on the cutting room floor (which means that we would have lost an especially entertaining exchange between Travolta and Del Toro, but alas). The film also sets up the notion that Ben and Chon love each other far more than they do O (which certainly explains why they are both cool with the other banging her), but we never really see this. The relationship as presented in the film is two close friends and business partners, and never really any deeper than that. Exploring the possibility of a homosexual relationship might have been interesting, but the film never gets that far into it.
The other big decisive point of the movie would be the ending (SPOILERS, if you didn’t figure that already): Stone pulls a switcheroo here, giving us a fake-out ending and then the real one. It’s a decision likely to rile some viewers, but although it doesn’t really tie into the film thematically, I found it so entertaining I really didn’t mind. In the fake ending, there’s a huge shootout, for which Stone pulls out all the stops: Morricone-style music, sunset-filtered photography that would make even Jerry Bruckheimer weep, gratuitous headshots and an ending that lets our three heroes go out in a Butch Cassidy-like blaze of glory. The real ending is far less exciting, with Stone portraying the events as they would probably play out in real life - with a whimper, not a bang. It’s little more than a stylistic flourish, but it’s certainly not boring. And damn if it doesn’t recall the Stone of old, who pushed film and his own style to the limits constantly.
Although never cohering it’s themes together to rank as one of the director's best, Oliver Stone’s Savages is a nice reminder that the director still has it in him to deliver a wickedly entertaining film.
* Former “Next Big Thing”-actor Emile Hirsch also shows up for a small part as Ben and Chon’s money launderer. It’s a shame Hirsch’s career never really took off like it should have (a moment of silence please for Speed Racer).
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