Everyone can be SAVAGES

SAVAGES (2012)
D. OLIVER STONE
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
2.35-1 HD


Oliver Stone returns to the drug business with his Southern California beach noir adaptation of the Don Winslow crime novel of the same name (Winslow also co-wrote the screenplay). The result is probably Stone's most entertaining movie in a decade or more, but is still not without some major flaws. But the film is so awash in beautiful scenery, and plenty of forward momentum it is easy to get caught up in the ride. 


The story deals with a trio of pot growers and also full time lovers. Ben (Aaron Johnson) is the Soft heart, hippie agriculturist of the trio. The brain who studied botany and perfected the specialized herb that has made them the millions they have. He travels around the globe spreading the wealth to the underprivileged. Cho (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle, an ex Marine, back from two very violent tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Scarred by the war both physically and mentally, he takes the business side very seriously. He is more animal than man most of the time. Finally there is Ophelia, (Blake Lively) O  for short, the woman that loves them both, and they both love her. She is the glue that binds them all together. The three of them live in a Southern California bliss, happily selling weed, and trading each other off with no jealously at all. The perfectly progressive family for the 21st century. 


Until the Mexico drug cartels come calling. Salma Hayek plays Elena, the drug Kingpin (clearly based on the famous Cocaine Madam of Miami) who wants the boys to reinvent her business with their product and growing know how. When they refuse and intend to run, she has Ophelia snatched and held captive. The intent to be she will be her captive for a year while they set up shop for her, then Ophelia will be set free and they will take a hefty cut in profits for disobeying. They boys know this is not going to work and going to war is probably going to be the best bet in winning back the love of their life. 

So begins a viciously violent thriller that delivers on most of what it promises. The first 30 to 40 minutes of the movie as near picture perfect. Especially the setting up of the relationship between the three of the leads. We get to know the boys especially well and understand what it is about them that Ophelia sees in them and why the threesome approach works for her.  There is a terrifying opening scene involving an internet video and multiple decapitations that is not easily forgotten as well as a sequence that introduces Benecio Del Toro's character Lado, an assassin for Elena that brings the title of the movie into sharp focus. 


But once Ophelia is captive the movie begins to drag a bit. The boys spend a lot of time trying to figure ways to get her back and the movie spins around more than it really should. There is a fantastic heist sequence that is bloody, brutal and fucking LOUD. But most of all takes time out to remind you the cost of human lives. 


But the movie slowly loses focus as it runs into the third act. Ophelia sort of never really rises to become a clear focus of the material the way she should. She gets one great scene where her and Elena have dinner and discuss the people in their lives they love. But mostly she just kind of whines and wimpers about her situation. As the movie progresses we clearly see why SHE loves the boys. They are everything she claims them to be in her narration that peppers the film. But we never get to really understand what it is about HER that makes them so crazy in love with her, that they are willing to risk their lives, to tear down their own empire to save her. Her character seems kinda of one dimensional compared to them at the end of the day. 

***SPOILERS***


Then there is the issue of the ending. Of the two endings actually. Neither of which actually conclude the film in a satisfactory way. The film actually has a shoot 'em up climax that is semi-satisfying, then ends with a Romeo and Romeo and Juliet death pact, then literally backs out of it to give us the "real" ending where everyone lives. Bad guys, good guys, supporting players, everyone. The whole thing feels weird and like a cheat. Problem is that the movie leading up to that point has been a journey for the two boys, especially Ben who has learned to give up a significant part of his humanity to save her. To have a happy ever after undercuts the point.. I have not read the book, but I would be curious to know how the book ends and if it is like the movie at all. 

Even with all this in mind, I still quite enjoyed the film. The acting is good, and Stone's direction is slick and back to the heavy saturation, crazy editing of U-TURN and NATURAL BORN KILLERS that I love so much. His politics are not as hit you on the head blatant here, but the pro-pot stance is loud and clear. SAVAGES is a very entertaining film. It just could have been a great film with just a little more effort. 


Review © Andy Copp

X marks the hookers

"X"

D. Jon Hewitt

IFC MIDNIGHT

2.35-1

This Australian lensed art/cum/crime flick directed by Jon Hewitt, is about a high priced call girl on her last night before flying the nest to Paris vs a teenage whore on her first night in the job. The two women end up working a job for a drug dealer who is killed by a rogue cop sending them in the run.

The movie tries to be gritty and street level in the depiction of a prostitutes life. But it never really is. This is a fantasy version of a whore's life complete with dirty old men asking for silly prices and rich drug dealers making the women come when eating them out. The crime element becomes increasingly silly and is hard to take seriously except for one head crushing scene clearly inspired by IRREVERSIBLE. The movie is about as edgy as JOHN LANDIS' 80's comedy movie INTO THE NIGHT, but not as funny or well made. 

What this movie DOES have going for it is some very impressive night time photography, and seedy location work. But outside of that, this is simply never as ugly, or shocking as the filmmakers clearly think it is.

watch for underground writer Jack Sargeant

And fellow Aussie director Richard Wolstencroft in cameo's during a strip club scene.

A well shot, well intended, but ultimately very silly movie. 

Review © Andrew Copp
 
 

BLEEDER, Nicholas Winding Refn's 2nd feature film

BLEEDER (1999)
D. Nicholas Winding Refn
Import DVD
1.85

After I saw the movie DRIVE this year I became a little obsessed with seeing other films from director Nicholas Winding Refn. I had previously seen BRONSON (2010) which I was very impressed with, and had caught up with his Viking epic VALHALLA RISING (2011) just before seeing DRIVE. But I had not seen any of his older films from when he was primarily still working overseas. So I took a plunge and placed a large order from Amazon UK (grabbed some other dvd's I had been looking for too) and picked up this one and his PUSHER trilogy. This was the first of that bundle I watched and I was suitably impressed.

BLEEDER is a street level drama about a group of friends and how their lives change when the core couple of the group become pregnant. Leo (Kim Bodnia) and Lea (Live Corfixen) have discovered they are going to have a baby, but Leo really lacks the maturity to handle the situation. He hangs out with his video store owning buddies Lenny (Mads Mikkelson who went on to play the villain in CASINO ROYAL) and Kitjo (Zlatko Burik) watching movies all night long, or trailing behind Lea's fairly dangerous brother, low level gangster Louis (Levino Jensen). Louis is not crazy about Leo anyway and he can sense that he is unhappy about the new situation. But as things progress, Leo begins to slip into a sort of psychosis, growing more and more reckless and dangerous, making bad decisions as if to purposefully cause problems for himself until it hits the middle of the film and a huge problem that will impact them all.

The second tier of the story is less tense, and what I suspect is more personal to the director. Lenny, who is obsessed with movies and practically lives at his job at the video story has fallen for the pretty girl who works at the greasy spoon diner around the corner. The problem is that he has no personal communication skills at all. All he can do is talk movies. His friends are used to him, but in the real world his is awkward, even backward to the point that he might even be suffering from Aspergers or mild Autism. His only connection to the real world is through what he knows in the thousands and thousands of movies he watches. So he struggles to connect to this girl, who is actually not too different than he is, because she loves books in much the same way.

The first part of the story grows increasingly tense as the characters play out the situations until it reaches the last act of the film and why it is called BLEEDER. It is not what you think, I guarantee it, and it is far more disturbing that you imagine, But it is thankfully tempered by the second story of Lenny's quest to connect with this young lady.

The movie is told with a constant roving camera, almost always on a steady cam, but never obtrusive, and like his later films, using modern music as a way to punctuate the proceedings and introduce characters and give them an immediate voice. This was Refn's second feature film but his vocabulary was already in place.As his acting company, almost all who were in PUSHER and return here playing mostly very different characters than in that film.

One thing that I will say I have found a little frustrating with his films is that they tend to be a little light on the female character's motivations. He simply doesn't write the most detailed females. His male characters are always fully developed and complex, while his females are always kind of by the wayside, or just plot mechanics to move things forward. With that said, BLEEDER is the one film of the bunch I have watched of his work that suffers the LEAST in this aspect with the two female characters being pretty close to fully formed here. Much more so than the women in BRONSON and PUSHER for sure.

Right now BLEEDER is the hardest of his films to see, but it is for certain worth the effort.

Review

© Andrew Copp