Savages
Directed by Oliver Stone
Written by Shane Salerno, Don Winslow
Starring Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro, John Travolta
Universal Pictures
Rated R | 127 Minutes
Release Date: July 6, 2012
“There’s something wrong with your love story, baby.” – Elena (Salma Hayek)
You’re goddamn right there is, Salma. Oliver Stone‘s latest film, Savages, is a heavy-handed, ineffectual effort that produces plenty of smoke with little fire.
Based on the novel by Don Winslow, Savages stars Blake Lively (Green Lantern) as Ophelia, one of many detestable, unbelievable characters in this moth-eaten shambles of a story. Ophelia is a blonde-haired flower child with the unique benefit of having not one, but two douche-bag boyfriends!
Former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson), a charitable Buddhist-slash-environmentalist (code for “white guy with dreadlocks”), run a lucrative business growing some of the most potent marijuana ever developed. That’s right, the ultra-aggressive dick you hated in high school and the pacifist Greenpeace volunteer who looks down on you for not recycling are BFFs and they’re totally cool with sharing the same clueless trust fund hippie.
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