Savages

In Oliver Stone's adaptation of Don Winslow's novel involving Mexico's drug cartels, Southern California's Laguna Beach weed barons/best buddies Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) are presented with a merchandising offer they can't refuse from mega-powerful, Tijuana-based Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek) and her ruthless enforcer Lado (Benicio del Toro), who are backed by a corrupt DEA agent (John Travolta). Disparate in personalities but bizarrely devoted to one another since high school, Ben is a sensitive, UC Berkeley-educated botanist, who takes time off to dig water wells in Burma and donate laptops to African children, while Chon is a cynical, battle-scarred Navy SEAL/Iraq War veteran who brought back their original marijuana buds from Afghanistan. Most implausibly the pair share a whiny, vacuous, shopaholic girlfriend, Ophelia (Blake Lively), called O, who is kidnapped yet obviously lives to narrate this cannabis-fueled reminiscence. Channeling Quentin Tarantino's testosterone-laden, ironic style, Stone wallows in excessively sadistic gore, particularly when Ben and Chon frame Elena's political pal (Demián Bichir) to be tortured as an informant and then abduct Elena's estranged daughter (Sandra Echeverría) to use as their pawn in a hostage-exchange plan. Filled with gratuitous, grisly, graphic violence, Savages is both sordid and silly, and not in a good way. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include two audio commentaries (the first with director Oliver Stone; the second with producers Eric Kopeloff and Moritz Borman, co-writers Don Winslow and Shane Salerno, and production designer Tomás Voth), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are the “Stone Cold Savages” five-part “making-of” featurette (34 min.), deleted scenes (16 min.), the BD-Live function, and bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a cinematic mess.] (S. Granger)