Savages (2012)

This was less of an action film than the trailers made it out to be. That's neither good nor bad, it just wasn't the film that I was expecting. In some ways, that is for the best since it turned out to be a more compelling story than I was expecting. In other ways it was worse than I respected as there are several long, slow scenes where you want to them to move along. I also had a hard tiem with some of the characters, but not the actors. Del Toro's character, while well-played was more of a caricature than a character. In fact this caricature would have fit better into a Quentin Tarrentino or Richard Rodriquez film playing opposite Antonio Banderas, well a character played by him at any rate.
The standout performance is by John Travolta as a crooked DEA agent, or as he would have us believe one of many. He showed off his receding hairline and made it work. He brought a bit of a beer gut to the action scenes which he mostly stayed out of. Travolta wasn't the only actor to land a complex character, but he is the only one that sells it. The rest of the actors do from fair to very good but none of them standout. If Salma Hayek's drug Cartel leader had been written better she would have wowed us too. Instead, I just kept thinking in every one of her scenes that this was the scene that we were going to see the other side fo the character. By the time she does get the opportunity, it's her last scene of the movie and by the nature of the scene we don't get to see very much. That was a waste.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the graphic violence including scenes of torture and executions. I'm not sure if Stone was trying to keep what he thinks of as real or if he was trying to make some kind of point. With Stone it might even be both or neither. Hard to tell. The word that instantly pops to mind is, "gratuitous". Sure, by the nature of this film there is going to be some violence and by the nature of the topic of this film, some of that violence is going to be extremely graphic. But, you couldn't spent the rest of the time showing us some more complex characters.
Actually one other thing worth mentioning, and that is the character of O, played by Blake Lively. Good for her for being in scenes where the boys are nude but she keeps covered up, but on the other hand, her character, whom is also the narrator is so boring - which is completely not related to the whole clothes versus naked thing.  Even undressed, her character would have been boring. My only thought on this is that in the novel this film is based on that she must a have a lot more going on, like actually analyzing things instead of just reporting them. There is nothing wrong with reporting, but in the case where the narrator is trying to get stuff across, especially the inobvious and internal dialogues, she can't be boring.

Savages on IMDb