Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Savages’ on Netflix, Oliver Stone’s Tale Of Weed Wars In Cali

Sun-drenched and blood-soaked, Savages (Netflix) pits the young kingpins of a homegrown California weed empire against the vicious Mexican drug cartel horning in on their cultivar methods and lucrative domestic distro. Will they survive? Let’s put it this way: Benicio del Toro’s landscaping service will cut more than your lawn.  

SAVAGES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: As oversaturated with California sun as it is with bloody splatter patterns, and adapted from Don Winslow’s 2010 novel by Winslow, Oliver Stone, and screenwriter Shane Salerno, Savages represents the last time Stone engaged fully with the themes and vibes that permeated his work from the 1980s through, say, 1999 and Any Given Sunday. Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch) have cornered a hefty portion of the marketplace for primo herb in Southern California and states further afield. With Ben’s banking and botany wizardry, and Chon’s starter kit of seeds he smuggled from the marijuana fields of Afghanistan while deployed there as a Navy SEAL, they produce high-percentage THC product and operate a thriving independent distribution network. They’re also locked in a mutual love triangle with Ophelia (Blake Lively). Everything’s going great until the Baja Cartel comes calling with an offer they can’t — or shouldn’t — refuse. We’ve already learned what Lado (Benicio del Toro), the cartel’s chief US enforcer, does to people who don’t make deals. (There are chainsaws involved.) Instead of dealing, Ben and Chon engage with their cadre of savvy Gen Y money launderers and computer hackers to arrange a golden pathway to Dropoutsville. Somewhere the Bajas can never find them. And that might have worked, had Lado not abducted Ophelia to use as a bargaining chip.

What ensues is a violent struggle of wills between Ben and Chon on one side and Lado and cartel boss lady Elena (Salma Hayek) on the other. And in between them is Dennis (John Travolta), a DEA sleazebag who nets kickbacks from both sides in return for greasing the works of illicit commerce. Ben and Chon hit a cartel stash house with RPGs; Elena demands $13 million for Ophelia’s safe return. Ben and Chon use DEA info and computer hacking to hang the stash house hit around the neck of Elena’s lawyer; Elena comes to America to sort out the mess herself. And all the while, Lado is working another angle, looking out for number one as he makes deals with Elena’s rival cartel boss. It all escalates to a showdown in the desert. Guns come out, threats are made. And the weed that all these people are killing each other over just keeps getting sold.  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The color palette and lurid rhythms of Savages are probably closest to Domino, Tony Scott’s unhinged LA crime film from 2005 that bled all over its dense ensemble cast’s financial and sociopathic machinations. David Ayer’s End of Watch came out the same year Savages did — 2012, for those of you keeping score at home — and also features two friends and partners going up against cartel heavies from the South, though they’re cops, not criminals. And on television, both Narcos: Mexico and Queen of the South explored elements of ladies running things at the top of the cartels.

Performance Worth Watching: Salma Hayek steals the show in Savages as Elena “La Madrina” Sanchez, the smart and ruthless boss of the Baja Cartel. While she spends most of the film padding around in her palatial Tijuana hacienda, Hayek puts venom into most every line read when she’s ordering around her henchmen, but is also filled with motherly chattiness for the moments with her absentee college-age daughter.

Memorable Quotes: “I have to come to Gringolandia to find this out?!” Elena is livid when Lado tries to hide the stash house attack from his boss, and she’s more than ready to remind him who pays the freight in the Baja operation. “Don’t forget whose tits you sucked, you idiot!” As Elena, Hayek is ferocious. 

Sex and Skin: The “threelationship” between Ophelia, Ben and Chon has its share of sultriness and skin.

Our Take: Savages presents its title from different perspectives. “It’s a jungle thing, Ben,” ex-military operator Chon tells his more hippy-ish partner in crime. “When they smell your fear, they like it. They will attack us. They’re fucking savages.” And Chon isn’t necessarily wrong in his reasoning. But from the perspective of Lado and his murderous goons, it’s Ben and Chon’s three-pronged open relationship with Ophelia that pins the savage tag on them. Everything looks different from a certain point of view. But at the end of the day, all of these people exist on the bad guy spectrum, and prove it in their arrogant, flawed moral code. The bud dealers just want their girlfriend back, but are willing to take others’ lives to achieve that. Lado, meanwhile, professes loyalty to one underworld master while offering his chainsawing and intelligence services to another at a freelance rate. No matter who is the savage, it’s all predation.

Hayek relishes her role as the big bad boss in Savages, and del Toro merrily dials up the murderous sleaze — Lado literally twists his moustache as he kills and tortures, aligning him with sociopathic rogues like Dickens’ Bill Sikes. In contrast, Kitsch and Taylor-Johnson can’t elevate their pair of kush slingers to the same level. Chon is all dour, combat-tested vacancy; Ben is never anything more than a naive idealist. And while Lively plays the lost rich girl well, she has very little to do once she’s nabbed by the cartel. Throw in a few well-executed gun fights, and Savages becomes an overlit mess of a story that’s carried by a few standout performances.

Our Call: STREAM IT, mostly for the even worse guys who take on the would-be heroic bad guys. Savages is messy, violent, and often garish, but it’s capably directed by Stone, who once made this kind of film his career calling card.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Savages on Netflix