Savages
Dir: Oliver Stone
2012
**
Oliver Stone needs to stick to his documentaries, he's obviously lost the plot as far as his fictional features go. In Savages the established actors Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta and Salma Hayek do what they are supposed to and do what they do best, although I thought Demian Bichir was criminally underused. The new actors however never convince and I found it impossible to warm to them. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is likable but his character goes through too many changes to be convincing. I do not care for Blake Lively one little bit, so having her as the object of desire didn't bode well for me. The dialogue is appalling, some of the worst I've heard for a long time. "Just because I'm telling you this story doesn't mean I'm alive at the end of it. This could all be pre-recorded and I could be talking to you from the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, it's that kind of a story." Seriously, what the F? The terrible script is bad enough, throw in the worst cameo from Stone himself and I'm afraid my mind was made up. I disliked this film quite a bit.