Movie Review: Savages

     Hit or miss, we've come to expect a message and a bit of heavy handedness from our Oliver Stone movies.  You never really feel like you are just watching a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted piece of film, there is usually a lecture that goes along with it.  While many Stone themes are present in his latest effort, the corruption of innocence, the loss of civility, the power of greed and fame, if you go into it expecting a deeper message you will be disappointed.  Although at times it seems to be trying to make a bigger point, Savages is best enjoyed when seen as a early Tarantino action film.  The ridiculous violence, the silly relationships and the over-the-top plot points screams more True Romance then Platoon.  I'm not going to call Stone a hypocrite for making the type of movie that Natural Born Killers was trying to lampoon because ultimately it's a good looking piece of entertainment, but be warned, Savages is far from high art.
     The credibility of the whole movie rests on the performance of Blake Lively, who guides and narrates us through the story, and that is where the movie falters.  Her ridiculous voice over takes you out of the moment early on and leaves you wondering about the motives of the other protagonists.  In a movie filled with wonderful performances, Del Toro is great as usual, Travolta is fantastic and Taylor Kitsch puts in his best effort to date, the most important one was horrible and because of that the film fails to reach the heights it's aiming for.  Instead of feeling any sympathy for her plight or understanding of her boyfriends' devotion, all you feel is annoyance.  The fact that Stone is a director with the unbelievable talent to pull a solid performance out of Salma Hayek, one of the most excruciating actresses in Hollywood, yet couldn't get anything close to passable from Lively doesn't say much for the young actress.
     Once you get over Lively's stale performance, you are left with a solid piece of Hollywood escapism; a movie on a higher plane then Michael Bay's Tranformers but lower then Jeff Nichols' Take Shelter.  I don't quite understand why Stone felt it needed a false ending, something that didn't feel genuine to the story being told, but by the time it got to that point my expectations of the movie were low enough not to be harmed.  This isn't a great movie and most of it will be quickly forgotten, but, at the same time, it was worth the two plus hours I spent watching it.