Savages (2012)

IMDb Listing
Oliver Stone directs this story of two pot dealers (played by Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson), whose mutual girlfriend (Blake Lively) is kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel. The tawdry premise, seemingly ripe for an exploitation picture (which the film was basically advertised as), actually gives way to a very strong script despite some poorly written and heavy-handed voiceover narration. Stone and his writers have a good feel for the characters and their circumstances, and the story is relentlessly logical in the way it plays out. A big narrative twist at the end is extremely daring and has displeased some critics, but again, the logic of it is pretty clear, so it didn’t feel like a cheat to me. Among the lead actors, I thought Johnson in particular stood out after being so dull in Kick-Ass, and among the supporting characters, Salma Hayek and Benicio Del Toro have a lot of fun playing the villians. It’s John Travolta, though, who has the best character and the best scenes, as a corrupt DEA agent playing both sides. Stone’s output has been very inconsistent for the last decade and a half, but this is one of his strongest films during that time. 8/10