Review of Savages (2012) by Roy Hector K — 01 Jan 2013

This is basically a mafia movie, but one that is more relevant to our times as it features the type of mafia that we see in our headlines these days, which is the Mexican Drug Cartel. The movie starts out very strong, the dialogue, the characters, etc., were all very well done. So well done, in fact, that I started to think that if Francis Ford Coppola would do "The Godfather" now, in 2012 instead of 1970, this would exactly be the movie that he would make.

But there is one thing that kept this movie from being made into a classic, and that is Oliver Stone. Stone has this perennial habit of overstaying his welcome. He wants to make a movie classic, but in the process falls in love with making the film that instead of thinking about the welfare of the people who will watch the movie, he ends up thinking more about how he wants the movie to be done.

And this is reflected in the movie's running time: Two and a half hours long. The first one and a half hours were really, really good, but then some unnecessary bullshit from Stone starts to bog the movie down. If he had tightened the editing, and kept the movie going along at a steady pace, this would've been a classic. Instead, it is a pretty good movie to watch, but one that falls short of its potential. And all because of a Director who just doesn't know how to stop.

The entire cast does very well, and good to see Taylor Kitsch end up in a pretty good movie after seeing him flop with "Battle Ship" and "John Carter". Lots of nice, sexy scenes, specially the ones involving Blake Lively. If you want to see Lively being humped on film for three or so minutes (probably the fantasy of half the men on this planet), then this movie is definitely for you. John Travolta doesn't get a lot of screen time, but does come across as very charismatic, as expected of a star of his caliber.

Overall, a worthwhile movie to watch, highly recommended.