Savages is the latest motion picture directed by Oliver Stone. It’s a simple tale of two friends and one shared (yes, shared) girlfriend. Chon and Ben are a team of pot growers, Chon the muscle, Ben the brains. The quality of their product is said to be legendary, head and shoulders above any other strain. The have built out a network that brings them and their people a lot of money. Great lives to everyone involved. A Mexican cartel rolls in and wants to partner up, spread the seeds into Mexico and beyond. This cartel is run by Elena (Salma Hayek) and she does not take no for an answer.

Ben in an altruistic guy, he wants to keep it simple and not go down a terrible path. When the boys say no, the Mexican cartel kidnap Ophelia (Blake Lively) to force Chon and Ben into the partnership.

So that’s the set up to this paint by numbers picture. Cue the blue and yellow filters all over the place, the sexy girls in bikini’s, the gun violence and the cursing. It’s an okay idea that is killed by…Ophelia. She sucks. Just a terrible character to hinge an entire movie on. There’s no reason why Chon and Ben are so head over heels for this girl. She’s stupid and spoiled to the point where you feel no concern over if she lives or dies. This girl is kidnapped, treated pretty well all things considered (until there is a cheap reveal at the end, which I really think was put in because the writers realized how lame of a scenario they were working with late in the game). She’s lucky she’s not in the bottom of a well and she complains about being given pizza to eat and no pot to smoke. Really?

The movie is cheaply narrated by her as her boyfriends go through all sorts of stuff to get her back and the climax of the movie is made completely stupid by a fantasy ending she comes up with. More of my time was wasted by this stupid character who wanted to show us a “tragic romantic” ending that just left me wondering why the time and money was wasted on filming it. The actual ending is decent, but that really doesn’t amount to much on this middle of the road Hollywood snoozer.

Skip it, you aren’t missing anything.