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| Gators are pretty savage. But so is Benicio Del Toro. |
Oliver Stone’s movie is based on Don Winslow’s book. The book is about Ben
and Chon, two twenty-something friends who grow the best pot in the world and
run their empire from a SoCal beach house.
They share a girlfriend, named Ophelia (“O” for short), who is a stoned
beach bunny/trust fund girl. When a
Mexican drug cartel wants in on Ben and Chon’s operation, Ben and Chon
refuse. To help them reconsider, the
cartel kidnaps O. Instead of knuckling
under, Ben and Chon decide to take action and get her back. The book follows the dangerous and disastrous
consequences of that decision.
Winslow’s style is fast-paced, humorous, and gritty. The book has the best first chapter in the history of literature. (I’m not
kidding. Pick it up and read just the
first page. It’s a fast read, I
promise.) The storytelling is
accomplished through straight narration as well as script dialogue, complete
with stage directions. The breezy style
keeps things moving, and as the reader, I turned pages quickly to find out what
happened next. This isn’t to say the book didn’t have serious
problems. It does. And those same problems nearly sink the
movie.
First, a bit about the movie. It follows the book pretty closely, for the
most part, which is likely due to Winslow having a screenwriting credit. Ben is played by Aaron Johnson (I have no idea who this
person is), Chon is played by Taylor Kitsch (I have no idea who this person is, either),
and O is played by Blake Lively (I am an avid Gossip Girl fan, so at least I
know who she is). The head of the
Mexican cartel is Elena “La Reina,” played by Salma Hayek. Elena’s right hand hit man, Lado, is played
by Benicio Del Toro. John Travolta lends
a hand as a corrupt government agent who plays both sides. With a cast like this, you should immediately
notice two things: the main characters
do not have one-tenth of the acting chops of the supporting cast. I am not sure if this was done on purpose or
it just happened that way. It mirrors a
serious problem in the book, however.
Problem the
First: None of the three main characters
are interesting, unique, or likable.
In the book, Ben is a wimp.
He’s smart enough to grow the world’s best pot using his UC Berkeley
education, but he’s not smart enough to hand over his operation to the cartel,
cash out, and enjoy a work-free life for the next sixty years. The cartel beheads people with axes and
knives and chainsaws and whatever other garden tools they can find. A sheltered California beach bum isn’t smart
enough to cut and run at the sight of this?
Are you kidding me? There better
be some pretty good motivation behind his decision. And guess what? There isn’t.
This guy makes no sense. He shows
no spine and no development.
Chon is also a pretty flat, undeveloped character. He is an emotionally scarred war veteran
after several tours in the Middle East. This,
at least, is a reason for his strong, silent characterization. He likes beating people up, doing it with
Ophelia, getting high, and not much else.
This will never change. He never
changes throughout the course of the book or the movie. At least he has a good reason.
Ophelia is one of the lamest, most annoying female characters
I’ve read in years. She
does absolutely nothing and adds absolutely nothing. She is vacant and empty. There is no personality there. I think we’re supposed to feel sorry for her
because she is somewhat the product of a shitty childhood—rich mother, several
stepfathers, no one to care about her having sex too young or smoking
pot since the 8th grade. Boo
hoo. Even so, she has no goals or
ambition. She goes shopping. That’s it.
I have no idea why either Ben or Chon actually likes having her around,
other than the fact that she lets both of them do it with her at the same
time. (There’s a gross three-way scene
in the book that is begun but mercifully cut short in the movie.)
All of these flaws are replicated in the movie. Ben is flat, lame, and uninteresting. Chon is flat, but moderately interesting
since he knows how to blow shit up.
Ophelia is a black hole, a swirling vortex of nothing that still seems
to suck in everything around her, including Oliver Stone. Stone chose to make Ophelia the narrator of
the movie, and seems obsessed with Blake Lively. There are tons of close-ups of her eyes, her
skin, her teeth, her fake butterfly tattoos.
She’s beautiful, yes. She fits
the role incredibly well, which may or may not be a compliment. Is telling someone they’re a perfect zombie a
compliment? The voice-over narration is dull
and dead-eyed and the movie would have been better without it. Still, Lively wasn’t given anything to work
with, so I can’t really say she did a bad job.
She did a great job, but zero times zero is still zero.
Problem the Second: The supporting cast steals the show.
Maybe this isn’t actually a problem, since the moviegoer is
sitting in her seat thinking, Thank goodness someone here is doing their job.
The guy who plays Ben is flat. Stone substitutes close-ups of his pale, pretty eyes for acting. When things
get
intense, he goes blank. The guy who
plays Chon is marginally better, thanks to an outburst where he stabs John
Travolta in the hand. He’s going for
“still waters run deep,” and he might actually pull it off. Blake Lively is…well…Blake Lively. She’s a one-trick pony, and that’s all that’s
required here. I doubt anyone could save
this character, so might as well let Lively have it.
But all anyone really wants to see is Salma Hayek and
Benicio Del Toro. These two really fuck
some shit up, in the best possible way.
Salma Hayek’s Elena is bitchy, controlling, yet vulnerable. She wears a jet-black blunt-banged wig
throughout the movie, symbolizing her need for utter control. Every hair is always in place, except for the
scene when she learns that her beloved daughter has been put in danger. Then, in a powerful moment, she rips off the
wig as she sinks to the floor, sobbing.
Everything you need to know about this character is contained in that
moment, in the best possible way.
Benico Del Toro is creep-master supreme. I’m not sure if he’s just a creepy guy in
real life, but he plays a stone-cold killer like he IS a stone-cold
killer. There’s no hesitation, no
regret, no guilt. He goes for it.
Shooting punk-ass lawyers in the kneecaps?
Check. Shooting henchmen who
hesitate to murder helpless women?
Check. Bullwhipping a traitor’s
face until his eyeball comes out?
Check. Yeah, he’s that kind of
hit man. Now here’s a lesson in acting
for the guy who plays Ben. Benicio del
Toro doesn’t need all kinds of facial contortions to express emotion. His character undergoes fear and anger and
happiness, and you’re completely aware of what he’s feeling though a few very
small facial gestures and body positioning.
He gets it exactly right, every time, without resorting to Jack
Nicholson grins or Tarantino-style theatrics.
*SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE
MOVIE*
Problem the
Third: The super-sappy Hollywood ending
the un-does the real ending.
In the book, everyone dies.
It’s kind of disappointing since you’ve just spent 200 pages trying to
muster up the enthusiasm to like them, and then they’re killed. But it’s also fitting since these aimless
losers drifted through life…let them drift into death, too, with the same kind
of bored, unthinking abandon.
In the movie, everyone dies, too. Oh, wait, but then they don’t. Ophelia’s drugged-out voiceover tells us that
it might not have actually happened that way.
I’m instantly reminded of Clue, where they show you two “maybe” endings
and then a real one where everyone committed one of the murders. The movie backs up a few minutes, to before
the death-carnage goes down, and it’s all re-done with the cavalry coming in to
save the day, all the bad guys getting punished, and all the good guys living
happily ever after. Are you freaking
kidding me? This gang of losers takes
down the Mexican cartel? And they’re
rewarded for their lame aimlessness with a tax-free life in Africa or Indonesia
somewhere?
I don’t
know if Universal executives forced Stone to produce a happy ending for their
big summer blockbuster, or if someone couldn’t bear to see Blake Lively bite
the big one, or if Stone just wanted to give a big middle finger to the
audience. Whatever the reason, it was a
stupid move and pretty much destroys any integrity the storyline might have
had. At least when the characters die,
we’re presented with a lesson: Try to
get something for nothing, and you will die.
If you don’t care enough about yourself to even try to survive, you will
die. The California consumer lifestyle
creates people of such unutterable aimlessness and vapidity that they can only
die without producing anything of real value in life. See, death works as the
outcome of all these ideas. What does
not work is letting them off scot-free, not a scratch, to live happily ever
after.
Oh, well. You win
some, you lose some. Savages is
beautiful to watch, electrifying when the minor characters are on screen, but
it has no soul.
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