I hadn't been to a theater in a long time, maybe two years. It was a pleasure to see the big screen.
But the sole purpose of the movie seemed to be to jack up the audience and keep us on the edge of our seats. The young people in the audience laughed and cheered in all the right places. Oliver Stone seems to know these people.
But as they were cheering, I was thinking, what a load of crap. To me, any piece of writing or film making--any storytelling--should be after some kind of truth about life or the world or some insight into the human condition. "Savages" doesn't give a damn about truth or the human condition.
Here are my notes, written after I got home:
Razzle-dazzle BS. Looks good, but shallow and superficial. I didn't believe most of the characters. I sure didn't believe the blonde girl. Sure, she loves both these guys. Yeah, right. Taylor Kitsch is excellent, in spite of his schmaltzy name. The story seems designed to jack up the audience rather than to reveal anything about human nature. No insight here. Cheap storytelling. Nice setting. Overall: C plus.
## (More notes written later:)
Obviously from a really crappy novel. It is too bad that this is what the culture rewards. As Ezra Pound once wrote, “In the end the age was handed / the sort of shit that it demanded.”
This movie has way more dazzle than depth.
When they do go for depth, it’s cheap pop psychology: These guys love each other more than they love you, that’s why they can share you. Yeah, right.
People judge these movies on how well they jack up the audience, not on whether they jack up the audience.
The blonde is screwing both guys, right, but why? To excite the audience, not because it’s something the character would do. She’s a poor little rich girl who is financially spoiled and emotionally deprived, so her natural inclination is to place herself in an even more insecure emotional situation? Right. Sure. What a load of crap.
And her name is ”O,” like orgasm, which stands for Ophelia. What crap. Again, just to jack up the audience.
The opening scene is “O” screwing the tough guy. Yeah, right. Then the other guy comes home and she does him, too, right? Oh, isn’t that the way we all want to live, or fantasize that other people live? No, we don’t. I don't. Looks like emotional chaos to me.
This is typical of a certain kind of mystery/thriller, where the object is to goose the audience till they are silly. This crap makes a lot of money, so there are dozens, even hundreds, of cheap writers competing with each other, not to see who can write the best novel, but to see who can jack up the audience with more cheap thrills.
These novels don’t mean a thing. It’s like Flannery O'Connor said, “There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
This one should have been prevented.
However, there is lots of good acting here. Benicia del Toro is great, as usual. Too bad all that talent is used just to jack up the audience.
I didn’t believe most of the characters, including Salma Hayek, although her acting is good. There is just not much character there. Nor did I believe John Travolta. Such shallow, clichéd characters are not engaging.
I am so-o-o-o-o tired of former Navy SEALs as tough guys. They are the standard macho muscle heads now, in schlock movies and pulp novels. Or some other special ops. Yargh. Please, God, no more Navy SEALs.
Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle
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