“Just because I’m telling you this story... doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end of it.”
Oliver Stone blasts back onto the big screen with this brutal, visceral and beautiful tale of drugs, violence and relationships.
And that means you can step out of the UK autumn drizzle and into a sun-drenched world of drug lords, Santa Muerte masks, grim beheadings and heavy-duty gunplay, all underpinned with a relationship love triangle. Strong stuff.
Savages tells the tale of attractive young beach bum weed-heads O (Blake Lively), Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch).
These three sexy as hell youngsters share a bed, run their own weed growing/selling business and generally enjoy the good life.
But everything changes when a very nasty drug cartel makes them an offer – as in an offer which they can’t really refuse if they know what’s good for them – to take over their operation.
O is the siren nymph who shares her two lovers – Ben is the gentle, Zen one who sorts out all the science of growing, and who uses his funds to help save African children, while Chon is a hard as nails former special forces type who weighs in on the rare occasion that their happy customers fail to pay up for goods received.
When the evil Baja cartel led by Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek) – who has a penchant for decapitating anyone who crosses her – want a cut of their business, the trio decide to cash in their ill gotten gains and run.
But the Baja enforcer is a seriously nasty piece of work named Lado, played by Benicio del Toro, who won’t let them go and kidnaps O.
Throw John Travolta’s corrupt DEA agent into the mix and things get messy.
There are some excellent action scenes, the stand out of which sees Chon get some of his army pals in to help them take down a Baja drugs money drop – complete with IEDs, rocket launchers and copious amounts of gunfire.
Another unforgettable scene see Ben and Chon’s sweaty highway trip to try and deliver a van loaded with grass against the clock but desperately trying to avoid the cops.
Savages tries to show the situation from both sides of the story but you can’t help but root for the good looking trio of ‘heroes’ – they do look absolutely amazing.
In fact if you can stand the serious violence, the eye candy, both male and female, is off the scale hot.
Good job Mr Stone, more like this please!