FILM REVIEW: Savages

Imagine the mutant offspring of Traffic and Point Break -- say, a movie soaked in a tie-dyed colour scheme and dowsed with tequila -- and you might have an inkling of the lurid pleasures of Oliver Stone's Savages.

Based on the bestselling novel by Don Winslow, Savages finds Stone returning to the high-energy lunacy of past films like Natural Born Killers. What's missing is the Buddhist director's politics. This is a surprisingly ambivalent -- almost cynical -- film taking a bloody look at the war on drugs and the collateral damage it causes.

Salma Hayek as the merciless Elena in the crime thriller Savages. (François Duhamel/Universal Studios)

The setting is the perpetually sunny Laguna Beach, Calif. where Ben and Chon are a pair of American beach bums-turned-millionaires. The duo applied a Silicon Valley start-up philosophy to the cannabis business. Now, a Mexican drug cartel run by a woman named Elena (Salma Hayek) is attempting a corporate takeover of sorts.

A dreadlocked do-gooder, Ben (Aaron Johnson) puts his Berkeley degree to use growing the best blunt. He's the kind of guy who wears a fashionable scarf to the beach and uses his money to "go Bono" in Africa. Meanwhile, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle. We first meet him furiously screwing their shared girlfriend Ophelia (Blake Lively) eyes dead. This is no love-making -- it's sex of the most carnal kind. "O" is also our narrator, her husky voice whispering at the start: "Just 'cause I'm telling this story, doesn't mean I'm alive at the end of it."

Early on, O refers to her guys as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but they're much closer to Bill and Ted. They seem to have little in common aside from the sweetie quite literally between them. Ben wants to change the world while Chon mutters: "You don't change the world it changes you." (Did I mention one of the screenwriters worked on Armageddon?)

A decade ago, a movie that included a war vet planting IEDs on American soil would have been rich fodder for Stone. But here, Chon is little more than a grizzled G.I. Joe who makes jokes about "going Sunni." After two high-profile strikes with John Carter and Battleship, Kitsch needs to score a hit. His boy scout-gone-bad role in Savages barely registers as a bunt.

John Travolta approaches his performance with a relaxed, big-toothed ease. (François Duhamel/Universal Studios)

Ben and Chon are as cliché as the Hawaiian shirts they sport, but the supporting cast saves Savages from itself. There's John Travolta as Dennis, an FBI agent playing both sides of the game. He comes from the Law and Order playbook, in which police officers must be seen eating or drinking constantly. Aside from his facility for noshing, however, there's a relaxed, big-toothed ease to Travolta. I actually found myself wondering why he seemed so comfortable and then it hit me: no rug! Travolta lets his bald dome shine.

On the Mexican side of the story, there's Benicio Del Toro to savour. He's Elena's merciless enforcer, Lado, who twirls his thin mustache as he snaps cellphone pics of his victims. If Kitsch plans on playing the heavy in future films, he should take tips the languidly charming Del Toro, who even manages to imbue his killer character with a nobility of sorts -- sneering at the American woman with two lovers while he plots his latest move.

Benicio Del Toro's brutal enforcer Lado tries to intimidate O (Blake Lively) in Savages. (François Duhamel/Universal Studios)

Hayek also has a regal air about her, an amusing impatience with these gringos. It's Elena who decides to kidnap O to teach the bud brothers a lesson in obedience. When the two women share a meal, Elena interrupts O's self-obsessed soliloquy with a blunt: "Do all Americans talk like this?"

In the end, it's minor moments that make Savages worth sticking with -- say how Lado picks the tomatoes out of a sandwich he snatches from a sputtering Dennis during an impromptu home invasion or Elena calmly applying skin cream in her mansion -- looking like a nun in white face paint -- as she watches security camera footage of a begging Ophelia. Points also for the muscular movie soundtrack: a blend of Brahms, Peter Tosh, Massive Attack and a sambalicious cover of Psycho Killer.

While it's certainly not Stone's best, Savages is a better-than-average pulp thriller propelled by both cruelty and kindness. Though the mix of styles can be intoxicating, much of it comes off as a weaker strain of Tarantino. This is style for style's sake. Occasionally, the themes of loyalty and family wink at the audience from within the Technicolor chaos. Still, be warned: the story wraps with a groan-inducing sequence that suggests the screenwriters are the true savages.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Taylor Kitsch's Chon, left, and Aaron Johnson's Ben have little in common save their shared girlfriend Ophelia (Blake Lively, centre). (François Duhamel/Universal Studios)