Savages

Movie: Savages

Genre: thriller

Synopsis: To set the cast: Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is a former Navy Seal, quite comfortable with violence.  Ben (Aaron Johnson) was a horticultural guru and more the peaceful stuff.   O (Blake Lively) is the girlfriend of both – and all three live together.  Elena (Selma Hayek) is the ruthless head of a Mexican Drug Cartel and Lad (Benicio Del Toro) is her equally ruthless enforcer. Chon and Ben make an unlikely pair of best friends.  Along with O, they have become growers of the country’s best marijuana.  They have no plans on expanding their business and are the antithesis of the classic drug dealers – very laid back and reasonable.  Until Elena decides to become partners with them.  When they are not enthusiastic enough for her, she kidnaps O.  This sets up the rest of the movie with the boys trying to rescue O and not get themselves killed in the process.

My two cents: My only real beef with this movie is with the trailers I thought they were a bit deceptive.  My expectation that I would be watching two guys go on a mission of vengeance to rescue their girlfriend – I was thinking of Denzel Washington’s swath of destruction in Man on Fire.  That was not this movie.  That said – I really did enjoy it.  I liked was the way it showed how a decent peaceful person (Ben) could, when pushed hard enough, descend into being a pretty darned violent and ruthless person. I also enjoyed how Elena was portrayed – one minute she is ordering men to be brutally killed and the next moment is on the phone pleading with her daughter to call her (from college) more often.  All of the main characters were very well played.

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