Savages (2012 Film)
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''Savages'' is a 2012 American action thriller film directed by
Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born ) is an American filmmaker. Stone is an acclaimed director, tackling subjects ranging from the Vietnam War and American politics to musical film, musical Biographical film, biopics and Crime film, crime dramas. He has ...
. It is based on Don Winslow's novel of the same name. The screenplay was written by Stone, Winslow, and Shane Salerno. It stars Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson,
Benicio del Toro Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (; born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican actor. List of awards and nominations received by Benicio del Toro, His accolades include an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy ...
, Demián Bichir,
Salma Hayek Salma Valgarma Hayek Pinault ( , ; ; born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela ''Teresa (1989 TV series), Teresa'' (1989–1991) as well a ...
, and
John Travolta John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He began acting in television before transitioning into a leading man in films. List of awards and nominations received by John Travolta, His accolades include a Primetime Em ...
. The film follows two marijuana growers, Chon, an ex-Navy SEAL, and Ben, who are best friends, as they confront the Mexican drug cartel that kidnapped their shared girlfriend. The film was released on July 6, 2012, to mixed reviews, and grossed $83 million worldwide.


Plot

Best friends Chon and Ben are
marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...
growers in Laguna Beach. Chon, a former Navy SEAL, smuggled the seeds for the plants out of
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
. Ben, a
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
graduate in business and botany, cultivates marijuana. The seeds yield a particularly potent strain, which develops a wide customer base. Chon and Ben become wealthy, and Ben devotes time and money to charity work in Africa and Asia. They are both openly in a relationship with Ophelia Sage. The trio receives a video from Mexican drug cartel enforcer Miguel "Lado" Arroyo of severed heads and a chainsaw, and Arroyo demands a meeting at which the cartel offers a partnership. Although Chon and Ben offer to hand over their network and get out of the business, the cartel wants their expertise and insists on a partnership. Chon and Ben plan with Ophelia to go to
Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
for a year, not telling her they are fleeing the cartel. They speak to corrupt DEA agent Dennis Cain, who is on the take from them and who urges them to join the cartel. Ophelia is kidnapped by Lado's gang; Chon and Ben are notified of the kidnapping by a video call from cartel leader Elena Sánchez, who threatens to harm Ophelia if they decline the partnership. They discuss the situation with Dennis, who tells them that Elena is facing the loss of her political connections in Mexico (foiling her efforts to move into the U.S.). Since she has already lost most of her family, Dennis says that he has nothing on her that can help them. Chon stabs Dennis in the hand and demands DEA intelligence so they can attack Elena. With help from Chon's Navy SEAL friends, he and Ben attack a cartel money convoy and kill seven of Elena's men. Ophelia, held in horrible conditions, demands to speak to whoever is in charge. Lado drugs and rapes her in retaliation for going over his head. Elena, traveling to the U.S. to visit her daughter and deal with the escalating situation, has Ophelia brought with her. Chon and Ben frame high-ranking cartel member Alex as an agent of Elena's rival, El Azul. With Dennis' help, they falsify evidence and give it to Lado. Lado tortures Alex to force a confession. After Alex confesses, Lado covers him with petrol and forces Ben to ignite the petrol; Ophelia is forced to watch. Lado double-crosses Elena and begins working with El Azul. Ben and Chon pay Dennis $3 million for information about Elena's daughter, Magda, and the name of his informant in Elena's cartel. They kidnap Magda and video-call Elena to establish that they are now in control. With Elena at their mercy, they arrange a desert meeting to exchange Ophelia and Magda at which snipers from both sides are in position. Then an imagined scene follows: Elena asks who revealed her daughter's location, and Chon tells her it was Lado. She tries to kill Lado, but he shoots her first. A firefight erupts, and Chon is shot several times. Lado is shot in the back by Ben but shoots him in the neck before Ophelia kills him. Ben is mortally wounded, and Chon injects him, Ophelia, and himself with a fatal overdose so they can die together. The movie snaps back to reality. At the meeting, Lado steals Elena's car and escapes as Dennis leads DEA agents with a helicopter to the scene. Everyone but Lado and Magda are arrested. Because Ben has incriminating information about Dennis, Dennis identifies Ben and Chon as his informants in the cartel, and they are released. Elena is sentenced to thirty years in prison, and El Azul and Lado create a new cartel called the Azulados. Ben, Chon, and Ophelia leave the country and live in a beachside hut, possibly in Indonesia. Ophelia tells us that they are living like savages.


Cast

* Taylor Kitsch as John "Chon" McAllister Jr. * Blake Lively as Ophelia "O" Sage * Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ben Leonard *
Benicio del Toro Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (; born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican actor. List of awards and nominations received by Benicio del Toro, His accolades include an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy ...
as Miguel "Lado" Arroyo *
Salma Hayek Salma Valgarma Hayek Pinault ( , ; ; born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela ''Teresa (1989 TV series), Teresa'' (1989–1991) as well a ...
as Elena "La Reina" Sánchez *
John Travolta John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He began acting in television before transitioning into a leading man in films. List of awards and nominations received by John Travolta, His accolades include a Primetime Em ...
as DEA Agent Dennis Cain * Demián Bichir as Alex Reyes * Sandra Echeverría as Magdalena Sánchez * Emile Hirsch as "Spin" *
Joaquín Cosío Joaquín Cosío Osuna (born 6 October 1962) is a Mexicans, Mexican actor and poet. He has been nominated four times for the Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas, Mexican Academy of Film Ariel Awards, winning the Ariel Award f ...
as "El Azul" * Mía Maestro as Dolores Arroyo * Shea Whigham as Chad *
Joel David Moore Joel David Moore (born September 25, 1977) is an American character actor and director. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Moore studied acting in college before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue a film career. His first major role was as Owen ...
as Craig * Amber Dixon as Sophía * Diego Cataño as Estéban * Leonard Roberts as Frankie * Trevor Donovan as Matt * Ralph Echemendia as Wiley * Jake McLaughlin as "Doc" * Alexander Wraith as Sam * Antonio Jaramillo as Jaime * Leana Chavez as Gloria * Elena Varela as Maria * Lexi Jourden as Hannah * Sean Stone as Eric * Ali Wong as Claire


Production

By August 2011, the film was shooting in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. The ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' 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." The sex scenes were filmed during the first three days. The film entered post-production in October 2011. Stone personally categorized it as a romantic action thriller.


Casting

Jennifer Lawrence Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American actress and producer. She is known for starring in both action film franchises and independent dramas, and her films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. The List of high ...
was originally cast as Ophelia but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Other actresses considered to replace Lawrence included Amber Heard,
Olivia Wilde Olivia Wilde (born Olivia Jane Cockburn, , March 10, 1984) is an American actress and director. She played Thirteen (House), Remy "Thirteen" Hadley on the medical-drama television series ''House (TV series), House'' (2007–2012), and appeared ...
,
Lindsay Lohan Lindsay Dee Lohan ( ; born July 2, 1986) is an American actress, singer, producer, and businesswoman. Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Lohan was signed to Ford Models at age three. She appeared as a regular on the soap opera ' ...
, 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 Peter Berg (born March 11, 1964) is an American director, producer, writer, and actor. His directorial film works include the black comedy '' Very Bad Things'' (1998), the action comedy '' The Rundown'' (2003), the sports drama '' Friday Night ...
to show him 30 minutes of Kitsch's work in ''
Battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...
'' 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 Uma Karuna Thurman (born April 29, 1970) is an American actress. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 and May 1986 cover ...
played Ophelia's mother, Paqu, but her scenes were cut due to time constraints.


Release

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.


Home media

''Savages'' was released on DVD and
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
on November 13, 2012.


Reception


Critical reception

''Savages'' received mixed reviews from critics. Based on 195 reviews collected by aggregate site
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film scored a 50% approval rating, with an average rating of 5.80/10. The site's critical consensus is, "It's undeniably messy, but ''Savages'' finds Oliver Stone returning to dark, fearlessly lurid form."
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
, another review aggregator which assigns a weighted mean rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 59, based on 41 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by
CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...
gave the film a grade "C+" on scale of A+ to F. The film was somewhat better received in Europe. UK film and music journalist Dylan B Jones praised it, claiming director Oliver Stone had found "a magic strain of sultry sex, frantically emotional turmoil, and glossily savvy action sequences". In a positive review,
Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
of the ''
Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...
'' praised Oliver Stone's direction, saying, "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." HitFix's film critic Drew McWeeny gave the film an A− and called it "one of the most complete pleasures for me this summer". He was in general positive of the actors' performances; he described Lively's work as "smart and sad precisely because she plays O as such a broken, needy little soul" and praised the bond between Kitsch and Taylor-Johnson which "seems not only credible but lived in and authentic throughout the film." In comparison, MovieFix's film critic Connor Jason gave the film 2/5, noting that "''Savages'' is a hot mess – beautiful actors and locations mixed with a plot that starts strong but ultimately turns into a snooze-fest. With a lead villain seemingly ripped from the cover of ''Cosmo'' magazine, Stone's latest flick savagely disappoints." The film was nominated at the 2012 ALMA Awards in four categories including "Favorite Movie Actor", "Favorite Movie Actress—Drama/Adventure", "Favorite Movie Actor—Supporting Role", and "Favorite Movie Actress—Supporting Role" for
Benicio Del Toro Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (; born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican actor. List of awards and nominations received by Benicio del Toro, His accolades include an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy ...
,
Salma Hayek Salma Valgarma Hayek Pinault ( , ; ; born September 2, 1966) is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico with starring roles in the telenovela ''Teresa (1989 TV series), Teresa'' (1989–1991) as well a ...
, Demián Bichir and Mia Maestro, respectively. According to InSight Crime, the assertions used to promote the movie "are not only false but promote a dangerously misleading view of the country's criminal groups." According to the article, in a televised interview Oliver Stone made a series of unfounded and false assertions to justify his opposition to the War on Drugs, fueling a "dystopian narrative of Mexico" and feeding on the belief that the Mexican criminals are "invincible supermen."


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Savages (2012 Film) 2012 films 2012 action thriller films 2012 crime action films 2012 crime thriller films 2010s American films 2010s English-language films American action thriller films American crime action films American crime thriller films American action drama films English-language action thriller films English-language crime action films English-language crime thriller films Films about the Drug Enforcement Administration Films about kidnapping in the United States Films about Mexican drug cartels Films about threesomes Films based on American crime novels Films directed by Oliver Stone Films set in Orange County, California Films set in Mexico Films shot in Indonesia Films shot in Los Angeles Films with screenplays by Oliver Stone Films with screenplays by Shane Salerno Relativity Media films Universal Pictures films