Movie: Savages (2012)

Savages (2012)
Crime, Drama, Thriller

I've been keeping an eye out for this one since I first heard about it and I'm not ashamed to admit that the strange love triangle is what drew me to it. I knew pretty much nothing else about it but was pleasantly surprised when I realised it has almost a Lock, Stock feel to it... This shouldn't surprise me considering it's an Oliver Stone movie... you know, the guy who wrote the screen play for Natural Born Killers, Wall Street and a bunch of other pretty good flicks? Yeah, I thought so.

So the story is, two friends - Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) - team up to create the best marijuana. The cartels get a whiff of the good stuff and want to take it over. Ben and John refuse.... so the Cartel steals their girl. Yes, they share the girl. O - or Ophelia (Blake Lively) - explains that Ben is the sweet one and Chon is the hard one and together they make a nice all round guy... makes more sense when she says it. And you know what, it works for them!

You might recognise Taylor Kitsch from a film I have yet to review but that I really liked, John Carter, or Battleshit, I mean ship... *cough* Plus I only realised recently that he was Gambit in Wolverine. So good! I didn't recognise Aaron Taylor-Johnson until I looked him up and realised he was Kick-Ass! Other than that, he's been in a bunch of good underrated films. Of course we all know Blake Lively as Serena in Gossip Girl... the character gets up to pretty much the same thing that Serena gets up to... we need to see you in a different role Blake, my dear!

Then there are the really big names; Benitio Del Toro (Traffic, Snatch) - who is one of my most favourite actors of all time! - plays the seedy right hand man of Cartel leader, Salma Hayek (Desperado, Dogma)  and finally, every drug related story needs a crooked cop... John Travolta (Grease, Pulp Fiction).

I love at the start of this movie (besides seeing Taylor Kitsch's ass...mmm) O's voice over telling us that just because she's telling the story, doesn't mean she's alive at the end, and so you spend the whole time trying to figure out if she survives. This story is another book to film adaptation, the novel written by Don Winslow and of course I've added this to my never ending to-read list on Goodreads...

I really liked this movie, I'll even watch it again... not one for the whole family though, obviously. The cartel fucked with the wrong guys! Hahaha!

4 out of 5 plantations...

[Quote]

Bens' guiding philosophy is basically Buddhist; don't fuck with people. His true genius is that he takes 99% of the paranoia and violence out of the business. The other 1%, well that's where Chon comes in. Chons'  philosophy is basically badist; don't fuck with Ben.