Savages (2012)

Oliver Stone's "Savages" presents itself as a stylish thriller about marijuana entrepreneurs in conflict with Mexican cartels, but what emerges is a film thoroughly invested in the aesthetics of transgression without any corresponding commitment to social consciousness. The narrative centers on Blake Lively's kidnapped girlfriend, a character so thoroughly passive that she functions less as a person than as contested property between two male leads. Her presence in the film is justified primarily by her desirability to men, a dynamic Stone treats with a kind of leering inevitability that suggests indifference to how such framing might register to viewers accustomed to slightly more sophisticated approaches to gender.

The film's treatment of Mexican and Latinx characters operates within the most tired and most damaging stereotypes available to contemporary cinema. Salma Hayek's cartel boss aside, the overwhelming majority of Latinx characters exist as faceless villains, threats to be eliminated by the white protagonists. The narrative structure itself reinforces this hierarchy: the kidnapped white girlfriend becomes the moral center of the film, while the countless Latinx characters exist only as obstacles. Stone seems entirely unconcerned with the cumulative effect of such imagery, presenting it as merely the natural texture of the world he is depicting.

What saves this film from a truly abysmal score is the absence of overt progressive posturing. "Savages" does not attempt to lecture the audience about social justice or attempt to claim progressive credentials it has not earned. It is a film made in 2012 that thinks like a film made in 1985, indifferent to contemporary sensibilities but also not actively performing wokeness. This is perhaps the only compliment one can offer: at least it does not insult our intelligence by pretending to care.