In California, the former Navy SEAL Chon and his best friend, the peaceful botanist Ben, are successful entrepreneurs producing and dealing high-quality weed. Chon brought seeds from Afghanistan and Ben used his knowledge to develop the best marijuana in the country. Chon and Ben share the pothead lover Ophelia and she loves both of them since they complete each other – Chon is a powerful and strong lover and Ben is a sensible and loving lover.
Their comfortable life changes when the Mexican Baja Cartel demands a partnership in their business. Chon and Ben refuse the deal and the leader of the cartel Elena sends her right-arm in America, Lado, to abduct Ophelia to press the American drug dealers. Chon and Ben ask the support of the dirty DEA Agent Dennis and get inside information to begin a secret war against the Baja Cartel to release Ophelia.
Savages is a 2012 American crime thriller film directed by Oliver Stone. It is based on Don Winslow’s novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Shane Salerno, Stone, and Winslow. The film was released on July 6, 2012 to mixed reviews, and stars Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Demián Bichir, Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, John Travolta and Emile Hirsch.
By August 2011, the film was shooting in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported: “The estate’s indoor pool was converted into a massive hydroponic marijuana farm for the film’s production, with about 300 high-octane pot plants jamming the covert nursery. Production designer Tomas Voth, said: “I wanted to use real plants and had them all ready to go, but it was some legal thing. Universal told us to use fakes.”[6] The sex scenes were filmed during the first three days.[7] The film entered post-production in October 2011.
Jennifer Lawrence was originally cast as Ophelia but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Other actresses considered to replace Lawrence included Amber Heard, Olivia Wilde, Teresa Palmer, and Abbie Cornish. In April 2011, it was reported that Blake Lively had been cast as Ophelia. Before casting Taylor Kitsch in the film, Oliver Stone asked director Peter Berg to show him 30 minutes of Kitsch’s work in Battleship to see how he was as a leading man, and after seeing that footage, he cast him. Trevor Donovan originally auditioned for a role that was cut but after seeing Donovan’s tape, Stone specifically wrote him a part that was not in the book. Uma Thurman played Ophelia’s mother, Paqu, but her scenes were cut due to time constraints.
The film was released on July 6, 2012. On its opening weekend, the film ranked fourth at the box-office, earning $16.2 million. As of April 3, 2013, it has grossed $47,382,068 in North America and $35,584,084 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $82,966,152.
Film Review for Savages
Oliver Stone’s “Savages” is a moral tangle embedded in a bloody war between two best buddies in Laguna Beach and the queen of a Mexican drug cartel. A return to form for Stone’s dark side, “Savages” generates ruthless energy and some, but not too much, humor. The movie is a battle between good and evil, you could say, except that everyone in it is evil — but some are less evil than others, and they all have their good sides.
The movie opens with a narration by a blond trophy girl named O (Blake Lively), who warns us, “Just because I’m telling you this doesn’t mean I’m alive at the end.” The plot is so twisty that this is both true and false. O (short for Ophelia) lives with the two most successful pot growers in Southern California, Chon (Taylor Kitsch), a hard-edged Iraq veteran, and Ben (Aaron Johnson), a brilliant botanist. It was Chon who smuggled prime seeds home from the Middle East, and Ben who cultivated them hydroponically into world-class pot. Chon handles the dangerous side of the business, Ben is the idealist, their product sells both through legal medical channels and criminal deals, and they share O.
O insists she is blissfully happy with this arrangement, and apparently the guys are, too. I wasn’t convinced. When three people share one another, that usually involves only the physical bits. The deep emotional parts are either withheld or missing. My notion is that O likes the luxury and attention, and the lads find her a convenience. This will come to a brutal test.
Life is a hedonistic feast for Chon, Ben and O, until a video arrives one day showing several Mexican drug workers whose heads have been removed with a chainsaw. The message: Share your business with us or you will regret it. The message comes from an elegant femme fatale named Elena (Salma Hayek), who runs a Mexican cartel and wants to expand into the United States and get a supply of their primo weed. Elena, whose impossibly silken black hair, jewelry, couture gowns and cigarette holder suggest a Dragon Lady in a 1930s Shanghai gambling thriller, monitors operations through a high-tech computer network and depends on her scuzzy henchman Lado (Benicio Del Toro) to enforce her desires.
Now try to puzzle out the role of Dennis (John Travolta), the DEA agent who accepts bribes from Ben and Chon, who pretends to be informing on them, who may actually be informing on them, and who may also somehow hope to profit from Elena. Dennis is an equal-opportunity rogue, living in comfortable suburbia, and filling out around the middle and thinning on top. He has the air of a frog waiting for flies. He’s naive about the people he’s dealing with and trusts that in bribery, a deal is a deal. One of the movie’s funniest moments comes from the astonishment in his voice when he squeals: “You stabbed a federal agent!”
Chon and Ben are not sufficiently warned by Elena’s ultimatum. They’ve been playing in shallow water, and she’s a shark from the deeps. They’re stupid enough to allow O to go on a shopping trip to the mall and clueless enough to be surprised when Elena’s team kidnaps her. (No, that isn’t a spoiler; everything that happens next would be the spoiler.) We now get a labyrinthine series of negotiations, mostly carried out via computer, in which O endures unspeakable treatment and Ben argues that they must ransom her while Chon, less sentimental, wants to take their losses. Both boys would be more than happy to get out of business and retire somewhere comfy.
Much of the fascination of “Savages” comes through Stone’s treatment of the negotiations, which involve percentages, sliding scales over three years, an ultimate payout, and other financial details that drugs have in common with big business. It’s spellbinding to watch the two sides trying to outthink each other. One of the big closing scenes involves a variation of the kind of hostage trade familiar from countless Western and gangster movies — only in Stone’s hands, it turns out to be not so familiar at all.
It’s hard to describe how morality sneaks in here, and how everyone is evil but some have their good sides. Try to unravel the relationship that develops between Elena and O. Notice that the snaky Lado, played by Del Toro as a pitiless predator, has certain sensibilities. Listen to the discussions between Chon and Ben about the woman who was part of their so perfect triangle. Try to track the motives of Travolta’s DEA agent. No, wait. It’s occurred to me that he’s completely evil.
Savages (2012)
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Jana Banker, Candra Docherty, Nana Ghana, Benicio Del Toro, Diego Cataño, Karishma Ahluwalia, Donnabella Mortel, John Travolta
Screenplay by: Shane Salerno, Don Winslow
Production Design by: Tomas Voth
Cinematography by: Dan Mindel
Film Editing by: Joe Hutshing, Stuart Levy, Alex Marquez
Costume Design by: Cindy Evans
Set Decoration by: Nancy Nye
Art Direction by: Lisa Vasconcellos
Music by: Adam Peters
MPAA Rating: R for strong brutal and grisly violence, some graphic sexuality, nudity, drug use and language throughout.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: July 6, 2012
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