Selvagens

If I was asked for one word to sum up this film it would be - Naïve.

Every character in this movie is clueless as to how the rest of the world operates and seems to live in their own eternal bliss of their microcosmic world. This in itself made the film very hard to relate to.

I have been an Oliver Stone fan for years, holding out hope that Natural Born Killers will someday be recognized for the art it is, however, this film was his "popcorn flick," and left me sorely disappointed. Acting was sub-par (even del Toro seemed to phone in some scenes and I have the utmost respect for his ability), the direction was sporadic and jumped from bubblegum to blitzkrieg in a matter of frames.

Save your precious two hours and watch Sicario or Traffik or The Adventures of My Little Pony in Juarez.

This was not a great movie. It could have been a great movie, but it was let down in two major ways.

First off, two of the three lead characters are awful. Blake Lively makes for good eye candy, but she just isn't a good actress. She's not bad in smaller supporting roles (like her part in The Town), but she simply cannot carry a lead. Unfortunately the entire film basically revolves around her (and she narrates), so her shortcomings are brought front and center. Every time her voice-over came on, I cringed. It really was not a good choice.

Taylor Kitsch is no better. Again... good eye candy, poor acting. Very poor acting. He just has no soul, and brings absolutely nothing to his character whatsoever. He should be in a brainless Fast & Furious movie playing opposite Vin Diesel, not an Oliver Stone drama.

The second major failure of this film is even more serious, and that is the story structure. We are never really given the opportunity to understand why the three lead characters (Chon, Ben and Ophelia) have such strong feelings for each other. We're told that they do, but never given any real reason to believe it. This is extremely important, because literally the entire premise of the film hangs on their relationship. If you're going to build a dramatic story around an unorthodox three- way relationship, you had better explain in more than one quick scene exactly how this relationship happened, otherwise the audience won't know why they should care about the characters. Especially when the actors portraying these characters aren't very good to begin with.

I know that I kept asking myself why these two guys share a girl, how they have absolutely zero jealousy, why they never once thought of double-crossing each other, and why either of them care so deeply for her -- to the point of being willing to risk their lives and commit horrible atrocities to save her. Where did all this love and loyalty come from? It was never adequately explained, and the entire movie suffers tremendously for it.

On a slightly more positive note, the veteran actors did a fine job. Benicio Del Toro was wonderful as a psychotic cartel underboss, John Travolta chewed the scenery to bits, and Salma Hayek was entirely believable in her role as well. Unfortunately, their competence only served to underscore the incompetence of the younger leads. It's telling that the best scene in the entire film was between Del Toro and Travolta, with none of the three lead actors anywhere to be found, and hinted at the promise this movie squandered.

A lot of reviews took issue with the violence portrayed in the film, but I didn't have a problem with that. You really can't make a movie about Mexican drug cartels without violence, so I didn't feel it was gratuitous. Unfortunately, however, it also didn't make the movie any more believable from a plot perspective.

Overall, I just don't think this was a very good film. I don't think that Stone felt entirely comfortable with what he was doing here, trying at times to be Tarantino but failing miserably. And likewise, I think that if this film had been in the hands of Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez, it likely would have come out much better, perhaps even great.

I know of acclaimed director, Oliver Stone, who released one stylish, deep-thinking, gritty classic film after another. Now, we find that someone else has only gone and stolen his name and is releasing films, pretending to be him... oh, wait, my mistake - it IS Oliver Stone.

Perhaps, Oliver Stone has suffered a nasty knock to the head recently and been duped into taking on this film when he wasn't thinking straight? Or maybe he was kidnapped by aliens and replaced with an identical clone who makes this sort of movie. Either way, it's hard to believe that the man who made Platoon, JFK and Natural Born Killers would stoop so low. Actually, that's unfair. If you're into gangster-type films and you just so happened to watch this, you may think it wasn't that bad. Nothing brilliant, but certainly not rubbish. And you'd be right. However, it's an OLIVER STONE film, therefore with that sort of quality name attached to it, you just expect much more.

It's about a trio of drug dealers (two men and one woman), all of which are 'in love.' Then, one day their threesomes are interrupted by a nasty ol' Mexican cartel demanding they take over their business. Then, to make matters worse, the Cartel Cliché only go and kidnap the two guys' girl, leaving them with no one for their ménage a trois. Therefore, they have to go on a rampage to get her back.

Now, this set-up leaves us with some awkward questions. First of all the three 'heroes' are all drug dealers. They live a carefree and lavish lifestyle and it's hard to give a damn whether they get completely wiped out by the Mexicans or not. Secondly, the girl (or Blake Lively) is possibly the most annoying on-screen character this side of Jar Jar Binks. The whole first half hour of the film is taken up with her voice-over, making her come across as a voice in your head which just won't go away. Then, even when she does get kidnapped, she starts complaining about the accommodation and food the drug dealers are offering. Seriously... if I was those two guys I would have placed an add for a new threesome partner online and left her to the Mexicans a long time ago!

Plus the film is long. It tries to be epic, but it does drag in places. Then you have John Travolta, popping up occasionally to majorly overact. To counter this you have the - normally excellent - Benicio Del Toro coming across as if he's half asleep.

Don't get me wrong, the film isn't bad. There are a few cool scenes to make you sit up and take notice, but the whole package just seems a bit underdeveloped and not worthy of Oliver Stone's name.

If you really like gangster/drug deal films, then give it a go - you might like it. But, a lot of criticism has been poured on its ending. I won't give anything away, but I'll certainly say it's novel. You'll either love it or hate it.

Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) coexist in a drug filled love triangle with O (Blake Lively). They become successful high grade weed dealers north of the border. Their lives get complicated when the Mexican Baja Cartel leader Elena (Salma Hayek) muscles in on their business.

Oliver Stone is putting all his skills into making a flashy crime action. But it just seem more flash than substance. Mind you, I appreciate the flash. There isn't anything original to the story. Certainly Oliver Stone has done better. Yep, there is definitely better Oliver Stone works out there.

Reading the reviews i'm not sure why people were expecting this movie to be like an Oscar winner or something? Going in I wasn't expecting it to be an Oscar winner, if you were expecting this movie to be about a Mexican cartel and not have violence in it then you know zero about Mexican cartels and that is an understatement.

Funny thing was i was expecting this movie not to portray Mexican cartels in their real light, but after watching the movie, yup they are as ruthless as the movie portrays and glad Hollywood portrayed them like that instead of sugar coating the threat they pose to the world.

If you are looking for a violent action movie based on an American drug ring vs a Mexican cartel well you probably have one of the better movies when it comes to that. If you are looking for gone with the wind, sound of the music or something like that best look else where. Me, I highly enjoyed the movie, it delivered better than i thought it was going to deliver. People will complain about the violence but again this is about a Mexican cartel, not the boy scouts. There is nothing i hate more than a movie that isn't true to it's roots, but this movie stays true to what Mexican cartels are all about when it comes to business.