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

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

It's been a while since I've read the book this movie is based on, which I think happened in the summer of '94. A whole group of us were on a kick of reading the same books so that we could pepper our conversations with allusions to them and try out new ideas, bouncing them off of others who were, for that moment at least, sharing our context. We read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the Tropic of Cancer, and at least one more as the group. I was such a voracious reader at that point. I was full into devouring authors. I read the other works by Hunter S. Thompson that I could get my hands on through the library, same with Henry Miller. I think this might have been the summer that I first started reading Charles Bukowski, as I was certainly trying to expand my repertoire of the Beat authors, even though up until his death, Bukowski refused any allegiance or even similarity to the movement. We drank a lot, smoked a lot of pot and cigarettes - all of us - and each had her or his own twists on it. My buddy got really into the whole Gonzo journalism thing and did everything to excess, more than the rest of us that is and did whatever he could get his hands on if he wasn't buying. His gal wasn't so much into the whole pot scene and went more literary indulging in Billie Holiday and Tom Waits, the real hipster of the group and my best friend at the time.. Another buddy went the whole coke and speed route and was twitchy all the time. Another pal and his gal got really into pot, growing their own. I was happy being a crazy bikkhu with my jug of wine and as much acid as I could get and consume. There were others not part of our core group that showed up once a week or so to party, but they never got our head trip. Another group of friends who were in on the pot scene, but not the expand-your-mind-aspect had a house together across town where some of us would often end up. That summer and the next couple of years, it was hard to find a night where anyone I knew was sober, but only that summer was there a head clique. I ended up with the pot heads, the more time I spent with them, the less I wanted to smoke pot. Not that I stopped, but I cut my consumption. By this point I had stopped thinking I would be part of a new movement in anything and focused on the solitary attainment of my goal. I would over indulge, and then write until I couldn't stay awake. I never had the urge to pull a Kerouac and take speed so that I would be up for five days straight to write a book. I guess I lacked that artistic drive. But, I would find myself up for a couple of days in a row, head too full of ideas to turn off or even dim. That was the most prolific writing time of my life. When I think back on what was going on, I always think of Doc Thompson and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because that got the ball rolling. There was also the aspect the musical scene in the Pacific Northwest at the time. From Eugene to Seattle, all along I-5 you could find something going on. How many crazy drives North or South did we make invoking the spirit of Doc Thompson and his faithful sidekick attorney?
I know that Johnny Depp was a personal friend of Hunter S. Thompson and based his portrayal of Thompson on personal observation as well as stories from Thompson. I also know that almost everyone in the movie had ties to Thompson who liked to flirt with both the Hollywood and Rock and Roll crowds.
My recollections of the book had the attorney being much less of a major player in what transpired, still present and the one behind the cluster fuck that was bringing Lucy to their hotel, but I had no memory of him being such a large asshole all the time. Movies are almost necessarily different from the books they are based on, but I think going this route with Dr. Gonzo was too much.
I remember a lot more recollection and wool-gathering by Thompson. This was mixed with his shrewd observations of American culture during that period. This really made the book for me. The whole drug binge in Vegas was just a vehicle to discuss the socio-economic issues of America, to discuss the politics of patriotism and the philosophy of responsibility to one's self and one's community.
I'd put off watching this movie for so long, that I knew that I couldn't help but be let down. It wasn't that bad, actually a movie I would recommend to anyone wanting to know about Hunter S. Thompson, though I think most people will find themselves saying, "what the fuck?"

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on IMDb