Weekly Review -- The nature of the beast

Savages (2012) -- Tricky as cinematic adaptations of literary works can be, sometimes a filmmaker hits a bullseye with their sense for a particular narrative and its flavor. With a gorgeous love story in the midst of darkly humorous and ironic observations of politics and the drug trade, Don Winslow's "Savages" quickly became one of my favorite novels. I could not wait to see the Oliver Stone film, and the adaptation succeeds in capturing the mood of the written word, complementing it with terrific casting.

**THIS REVIEW CONTAINS NOVEL/FILM SPOILERS**

Former Navy SEAL Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and his best friend, botanist Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), are living the good life in sunny California. They have a lucrative business -- growing selective marijuana for a selective clientele -- and a loving girlfriend, O (Blake Lively). The trio share a deep, meaningful bond, one that gets tested when the Mexican Baja cartel comes knocking and requests that Ben and Chon join their operation. After the friends refuse, the cartel kidnaps O and their leader, Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek), sets an ultimatum. What are Ben and Chon willing to do for their woman?

Well... anything. This is a story about love and devotion, about beauty and idealism getting corrupted by the insanity of brutes, about erasing the line between the good guys and the bad guys for the sake of what is sacred. Each of the three protagonists is flawed in their own way -- Chon is damaged by the war evils he had witnessed, Ben is too quixotic for his own good and O does not possess a clear sense of self without her men. Still, the three have a stable, fulfilling relationship based on profound trust and passion, revolving around virtues as well as flaws. The scenes involving the three characters are tender and sincere, with even the brightness in cinematography contrasting the bleak, dry hues in the scenes involving the cartel dealings.

On the other hand, all of the above traits are missing from the life of the growers' enemy, Elena Sanchez. Alone in a male-dominated environment and surrounded by henchmen who cannot match her in intelligence, she is starving for an emotional connection, for a way to escape death, her constant companion. One occasionally gets the sense that she is jealous of the family that her three opponents have created, and why would she not be? Her own family was murdered by the "business" she was forced to inherit and her criminal activities alienate her from the rest of society. In fact, it is her unlikely kinship with O that provides some of the film's brighter moments. We know that, naturally, these chat sessions are not meant to last and we know where O belongs, but it is these sequences that etch the heart out of Elena's heartless existence.

The screenplay by Winslow, Stone and Shane Salerno is taut and clever, effectively bringing the novel's essence to a new medium. I am not sure what to think about the ending, though. However blissful and beautiful it is, I believe that the novel's final act is more appropriate, especially in the context of three lovers losing themselves in a world of eternal strife. The film's denouement feels like a cop-out in many ways; we are already aware that Hollywood is not crazy about endings that it perceives as downers. 

The performances make the film. Kitsch is perfectly cast as Chon, showing once again how edgy writing brings out his best work. He plays the former SEAL as a resilient warrior, jaded to the point of detachment and simmering to the point of eruption. The character is unpredictable and violent, recognizing the malevolent side of the world long before Ben does and taking drastic measures to restore equilibrium in their corner. He has great chemistry with Johnson, whose Ben is a man of peaceful rationale, a quality that slowly dissolves in the face of atrocities seeping into the trio's orderly realm. Playing O, the unwitting pawn in the drug game, Lively depicts a person who can only be seen as a collage of shared experiences and not as an independent entity. She exists through her relationship with Ben and Chon; without them, she is a lost soul threading uncharted territory. Hayek is fantastic as the often conflicted Elena, while Benicio Del Toro drips with ruthlessness as Lado, her main enforcer. John Travolta creates one of his most memorable portrayals as Dennis, a corrupt DEA agent capable of acknowledging his weaknesses, relaying his doubts and dilemmas in one of the best cinematic monologues of the past few years. Finally, Demián Bichir and Antonio Jaramillo are pure sleaze as the cartel lawyers, while Emile Hirsch provides a bit of a comic touch as Spin, Ben and Chon's money launderer. 

Savages is a suspenseful thriller, a drama about relationships within chaos and, above all, an ode to love beyond the ruins. Its hyperkinetic tone may be perfect for painting a battle between good and evil, but at its core is a tale about human beings salvaging their bliss in the aftermath of its collision with reality. Who are the real savages? In a perfect storm of circumstances, when it comes to the people we love, we all are.

9/10