THEATER REVIEW: MACBETH

Macbeth (Bo Foxworth) in Macbeth.

Spot on

By Ed Rampell

True confession: Until I attended the Antaeus Company’s luminous production of MacBeth, I had never actually read or seen a stage or screen adaptation of the Scottish play, as it is called. Sure, when I was a lad I attended MacBird!, the 1967 satire that combined elements of MacBeth with the JFK assassination. And I was familiar enough with Shakespeare’s immortal lines to know that “Out, out damn spot!” was not Dick and Jane chasing a dog away from their home.

The good news is that Antaeus’ rendering of the Bard’s tragedy about power mad social climbers made MacBeth well worth the wait for me. The ensemble’s admirable acting, which ranges from the psychopathological to the vaudevillean, is adeptly directed by Jessica Kubzansky. Antaeus has a full double cast -- the “Kinsmen” and the “Thanes” -- of around 20 players each tackling the production on alternate nights. At the premiere the Kinsmen performed, with Bo Foxworth and a not so noble Ann Noble portraying the murderous schemers who would be king and queen of Scotland.

The Antaeus version opens not with the trio of witches, but with a bit of poetic license, adding an entire scene that’s only suggested by the drama’s actual dialogue. In it, MacBeth (Foxworth) and Lady MacBeth (Noble) lament the death of their infant. The loss drives the couple to the brink and actually supplies an explanation for their subsequent power grabbing behavior. Unable to control the course of the natural world (childbirth), in a bizarre form of compensation, the MacBeths seek to seize state power and run the government so they will have some sense of control over a capricious world.

This prelude enhances insight into the lead characters’ motivations and enriches the play’s innately psychological text and texture. With her sheer will to power, come hell or high water, Noble is chilling as she pushes her husband to perform heinous deeds in order to attain then maintain the throne. Along with Hamlet,that other tragedy about those who wear the crown uneasily upon their troubled heads, MacBeth is arguably Shakespeare’s most psychological play.

Indeed, MacBeth says to the Doctor (Steve Hofvendahl) about his sleepless, guilt wracked wife: "Cure her of that." Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart?” Well, what is this if not a prescription for creating psychoanalysis, some 250-plus years before Freud?

But as the personal is also the political, Shakespeare elevates his drama beyond the realm of the mind and into statecraft. Although it’s rarely, if ever remarked upon, a recurring Shakespearean theme is the toppling of bad rulers by a more righteous wing of the elite, which seeks to set things right. This faction fighting leitmotif runs through many of the Bard’s epics, including: Hamlet, Richard III, Measure for Measure, Julius Caesar and MacBeth.

There are too many good actors to cite but allow me to single out Peter Van Norden as a droll Seyton (he also doubles as Duncan), Joe Holt as Banquo and James Sutorius as MacDuff. Foxworth plays MacBeth as if he has a a Napoleonic complex, seeking to make up through swordplay, murder and mayhem what he lacks in stature. Returning to Noble as Lady MacBeth, she is the ultimate henpecker, ever prodding her beleaguered husband on. She’s more terrifying than Scotland’s other infamous horror, the Loch Ness Monster. Noble is positively harrowing with her crimson locks and reddish period outfit, all redolent of her blood obsessed psyche costumed by Jessica Olson, who effectively garbs the rest of the cast in kilts, gowns and armor. (But where was that bagpipes player to complete the scene?)

Scenic Designer Tom Buderwitz, who brilliantly crafted a faithful replica of a British pub in the same playhouse where Antaeus presented Noël Coward’s WWII era Peace in Our Time, has worked his magic againon the diminutive stage, with sets that conjure up castles and misty Scottish moors.

Of course, the real star of this production remains Shakespeare, that inventor of proto-psychoanalysis. As Humanism swept Europe the Bard’s ultimate gift was to dramatize the “double toil and trouble” of the cauldron of the mind. Had he put quill to parchment and wrote the phone book, every time one looked a number up he or she would laugh or weep. Antaeus’ hair raising production does the playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon proud.

MacBeth runs through Aug. 26 at the The Antaeus Company, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601. For more info: 818/506-1983; www.Antaeus.org.

FILM REVIEW: THE WATCH

A scene from The Watch.

American style Snatch

By Don Simpson

Akiva Schaffer's The Watch opens with a not-so-clever bit about white bread life in the American Midwest. As Evan (Ben Stiller) jogs around his utopian, suburban town the joke seems to be on him. Evan wants to have a lot of friends, especially ethnic ones. He has an Indian friend, a Korean friend, and he is currently in the market for a black friend. (This all seems like a badly conceived SNL sketch.) This is why Evan has started a bunch of crazy clubs -- running club, Spanish club, etc. -- to force people to hang out with him.

Evan is the manager of the local Costco. On one fateful night, Evan runs into the nighttime security guard, Antonio Guzman (Joe Nunez), a Hispanic immigrant who has just passed his U.S. citizenship exam. Evan is quite proud of his growing collection of ethnic friends; now that Antonio is a card-carrying member of the U.S. of A., he becomes another trophy for Evan's mantel.

Just when it seems The Watch has pushed Evan's acceptance of "others" a bit too far, the film turns into an alien invasion flick -- specifically an alien invasion flick in which aliens might be disguised as humans. We have all seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, right? Well, it is impossible to tell if The Watch is lampooning the fear-mongering that is inherent in aliens-disguised-as-humans films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or if it is actually taking its own plot seriously. In fact, nothing is ever what it seems, especially The Watch's opinion of "others," as well as its opinion of Evan and his neighborhood watch crew -- Bob (Vince Vaughn), Franklin (Jonah Hill), and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade).

The gaggle of screenwriters -- Jared Stern, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg -- obviously tries to set up Evan as being overly accepting of "others" then turn his world so upside down that he is forced to fear practically everyone. If they could pull that trick off more smoothly, maybe the plot of The Watch would be more effective. Instead, the much-too-clever-for-their-own-good screenwriters muddy up the narrative with a lot of useless information, primarily Evan's sexual issues and Bob's parenting issues. All the while, Franklin is revealed to be a one-dimensional caricature of a nutso vigilante and Jamarcus is...well...just another geeky British guy played by Ayoade.

The Watch tries to be a very masculine film, saturated with mindless, testosterone-fueled humor. I can sometimes deal with "manly" (in this case, boyish) jokes, but even the fleeting memories of the film's long-winded sketch mocking the Abu Ghraib photos still completely spoils my mood. The script is fascinated with the masculine need for dominance, whether it be by using a penis, gun or knife. The Watch seems overly fixated on male genitalia (and other phallic metaphors), continuously going out of its way to squeeze in as many penis and cum jokes as possible. The women of The Watch are embarrassingly passive, sexual objects. Using the logic of The Watch, anyone (especially women) without a fully functioning penis (or gun) is powerless. Instead, women are repeatedly represented as vacant orifices that serve as mere receptacles for penises, including Evan's sex-starved wife, Abby (Rosemarie DeWitt). Heck, even the aliens want a piece of that action.

THEATER REVIEW: WHAT DO YOU DREAM OF?

Gerald Rivers in What Do You Dream Of?

From the mountaintop

By Ed Rampell

During the long imprisonment of her husband, Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela felt like “Part of my soul went with him,” as the title of her autobiography put it. In the same vein, when Dr. Martin Luther King’s life was cut short and the Civil Rights leader was taken away from us by an assassin’s bullet in 1968, part of America’s collective soul went with him. I truly don’t think the USA has ever recovered from the loss of such a moral compass, who could speak truth to power so authoritatively, persuasively -- and eloquently.

But for one night only, this one-of-a-kind apostle of peace will live again onstage during Gerald Rivers’ (almost) one man show What Do You Dream Of?Dr. King called America the world’s “greatest purveyor of violence” and Rivers is surely the planet’s greatest purveyor of this prophet of nonviolence in the entire arts world. With a smidgen of poet Samuel Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief,” for 90 minutes or so Rivers’ uncanny impressions of the noble Nobel Peace Prize winner seems to bring King back to life.

According to Ellen Geer, Artistic Director of the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, “the Martin Luther King estate adores Gerald. They really opened the literature to him… The library is open to him; all of Martin Luther King’s works, so that should say something,” especially considering that the King family is noted for its tightfisted control and copyrighting of the slain patriarch’s literary legacy.

The MLK speeches Rivers draws upon during his production include: “I Have A Dream”; “Funtown USA”; "The Street Sweeper"; and “American Dream.” Two songs were written especially for the Theatricum show: "Dare to Dream" by Jeffrina Oakes and "MLK Saved the Day," written by 13-year-old Miles McAliley.

Although essentially a one man show, the play includes African and Asian dance numbers. What Do You Dream Of?is playing July 27 at the Theatricum’s smaller 100-ish seat “Under the Oaks” amphitheatre for a special one night only performance as a fundraiser for the Topanga theatre company.

Geer, who was interviewed in front of Woody Guthrie’s cabin at the Topanga grounds, goes on to say, “Gerald has become very important, because of the way he delivers, and the power behind when he does Martin Luther King’s speeches is quite profound… He understands how to drum up that wonderful energy Martin Luther King had to engage a large group of people… And he’s created this piece, and his children are in it this year. His daughter, who is an intern here with us, and his son, who was an intern last year” at the Theatricum, which not only presents Shakespeare and more under the stars in its twin Topanga amphitheatres, but also trains young talents who aspire to work in the theatre.

As stellar as Rivers’ depiction of MLK is, he is no one-trick pony. Rivers is a longtime member of the Theatricum’s troupe of thespians, who appears this summer in the theatre company’s rollicking production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, which takes artistic liberties and under Ellen’s tutelage, is reset from Elizabethan London circa 1603 to counterculture California during the sizzling 1960s. Rivers appears as King at the opening of the updated Measure for Measure, “then he plays a pimp; it’s a beautiful switch,” laughs Geer, as Rivers depicts a Blaxploitation type of procurer during most of Shakespeare’s bawdy comedy.

During What Do You Dream Of?the dreadlocked Gerald also portrays a Southern Grandmother (in a tribute to all grandmas); a man (Sherman Tank) incarcerated along with Dr. King; MLK’s daughter, Yolanda; plus “Dreamawonde,” the ancient African Griot, with his father “Azanti.” But of course, the highlight is when not-so-old-man Rivers brings that shining prince of peace ever so back to life. For an hour and a half or so, through the magic of live theatre, viewers’ hearts can stop aching from the loss of our beloved dreamer and ever so briefly, our souls can soar again towards that long, lost “Beloved Community” Dr. King rhapsodized about. Rivers’ play allows us to fly back up the mountaintop and, as Hamlet put it, “Perchance to dream.”


What Do You Dream Of?will be performed tonight, 8 p.m., at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum: 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga, California, 90290. For information: 310/455-3723; www.Theatricum.com.

FILM REVIEW: DARK HORSE

Miranda (Selma Blair) and Abe (Jordan Gelber) in Dark Horse.

The soul of Solodnz's Miranda

By Don Simpson

Abe (Jordan Gelber) is essentially all of Hollywood's stereotypes of losers rolled into one: overweight, balding, collector of action figures, 35-years-old and resides with his parents (Mia Farrow and Christopher Walken), works for his father (but seems utterly incapable of actually doing any work), drives a yellow Hummer, and listens to nothing but cheesy bubblegum pop. He is an overgrown brat who is prone to lashing out at everyone around him and blaming his family for his arrested development.

As you can probably guess, Abe's social skills are also lacking. This is showcased during the opening sequence in which Abe attempts to get a phone number from the quietly morose woman -- Miranda (Selma Blair) -- who is helplessly seated next to him at a wedding. Abe knows no boundaries and Miranda is ill-equipped to deal with a man who cannot take a hint. Nonetheless, Abe pries each digit from Miranda as if he is yanking her teeth out one by one with his fingers.

Writer-director Todd Solondz has an inherent knack for uncomfortable situations, and he attacks the opening sequence like the somewhat seasoned veteran that he is. Unfortunately, Solondz quickly becomes stuck in a quagmire of having nothing else to do with these two losers. So what would have been an inspired short film is stretched into a lazy portrayal of one-dimensional caricatures with limited personality traits that play in an endless loop for Dark Horse's 86-minute running time. Abe alternates between throwing childish tantrums and confusing lucid dreams with reality, while Miranda remains expressionless and emotionless. (It is a "joke" that she is so incredibly dull that she names her dog, Dog.)

In a way, Dark Horse is a lot like Miranda. The film has absolutely nothing to say or do. The narrative just stands there, blankly staring at us like Dora (the Explorer) awaiting our response. But what are we supposed to respond to? For better or worse (mostly worse), it seems as though Solondz no longer feels the desire to shock us; instead he just tries to bore us into a hypnotized state of mind-numbing submission. Then, once Abe starts slipping into ridiculous fits of fantasy, Dark Horse dissolves into complete nonsense.

OUTFEST 2012: MY BEST DAY

Karen (Rachel Style) in My Best Day.

Thawed relationships

By Miranda Inganni

It is the Fourth of July and sparks will fly around a small town after a phone call in writer-director Erin Greenwell’s wonderfully crafted film, My Best Day.

Karen (Rachel Style) is bored and annoyed. While others enjoy the holiday independently from work, Karen is stuck answering phones for a repair shop. Assuming the normal tedium, Karen’s day changes after she receives a call from a man with the same name as the father of hers she has never knew.

Eager to find out if the man is her father, Karen takes a trip to the next town over with the help of her friend, Meagan (Ashlie Atkinson). Meagan is going through a bit of a bout of relationship woes and recently has purchased a motorcycle -- perchance for a ride to freedom with an attractive, new love interest. With Meagan posing as the fridge repair person, the two young women get involved with Karen’s newly reunited family.

Subtle, nuanced hilarity ensues.

Karen reconnects with her half-sister, Stacy (Jo Armeniox), whose life has been overwhelmed by a gambling problem, while meeting her younger half-brother, Ray (Robert Salerno), who spends his day fighting with neighborhood bullies while trying to win over his first love. Then there are the nutty cops, a guy in search of meatless meat and host of smaller, small town folk.

Greenwell’s writing is superb and the cast of characters is extremely well acted, if not just exceptionally well cast. Characters are comical yet recognizable, making My Best Day one of the better films of the Outfest film festival.

OUTFEST 2012: A MAP FOR A TALK

Javiera (Francisca Bernardi) and Roberta (Mora Andrea) in A Map for a Talk. 

A Chile reception

By Miranda Inganni

Set in two days in Santiago, Chile, A Map for a Talk (Mapa Para Conversar) addresses the difficulties of establishing a relationship with someone while an overbearing parent looks on with distrust and dismay.

Roberta (Moro Andrea) is raising her young son, Emilio (Romano Kottow), with her girlfriend, Javiera (Francisca Bernardi). The tension between the lovers quietly simmers while they go about their daily lives, but it is clearly taxing the two women. One afternoon Roberta joins her mother, Ana (Mariana Prat), for coffee specifically to tell mom about her relationship with Javiera. A rather conservative woman with an uncomfortable past association with the politics of Chile's Pinochet regime, Ana is more concerned with her own image than her daughter's happiness.

Roberta decides that a day at sea on a relatively small sail boat is exactly what the three women need in order for her mother to be comfortable with Roberta’s lifestyle. What starts out with somewhat forced familiarity quickly turns to inebriated loss of inhibitions, which in turn leads to uncomfortable confrontations. Roberta and Javiera bicker. Roberta and Ana berate each other. Ana and Javiera butt heads.

While the dynamics between the two lovers is explored in writer-director Fernandez Constanza's A Map for a Talk, it is the relationship between mother and daughter that is at the heart of the film. Ana is not homophobic, she essentially approves of Javiera, but she clearly believes her daughter is not living up to her potential.


A Map for a Talk screens at Outfest 2012: July 14, 7:15 p.m., DGA 2; July 21, 2 p.m. DGA 2. For more information: A Map for a Talk.

FILM REVIEW: UNION SQUARE

Lucy (Mira Sorvino) in Union Square.

Unit-wit

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Nancy Savoca's Union Square is a strange, little film that seems unsure if it wants to achieve subtle neo-realism via a severely concentrated character study or appeal to the cheap seats as an over-the-top Odd Couple-like comedy.

The film follows a cartoonishly brash and outlandish babe from the Bronx, Lucy (Mira Sorvino), as she spirals uncontrollably towards a nervous breakdown. With what seems like a well-versed knack for dropping in on people, Lucy arrives at Union Square station to surprise a lover -- after some bargain shopping at Filene's Basement first, of course. When Lucy finally gets the not-so-subtle hint that her lover wants absolutely nothing to do with her, she heads straight to her estranged sister Jenny's (Tammy Blanchard) apartment.

Jenny is understandably shocked to see Lucy; and assuming that Lucy intends for this to be an extended stay, Jenny comes off as cold and unwelcoming. We then realize that maybe it is just in Jenny's natural personality to be cold and unwelcoming; just take a look around at her immaculately sterile apartment. You see, Jenny is one of those snobbishly organic, vegetarian types who suffers from the tunnel vision of her holier-than-thou lifestyle. Worst of all, Jenny has disowned her crazy family from the Bronx and developed a fictional past in which she grew up in a idyllic New England household, which is certainly more conducive to her bland granola-light lifestyle. Jenny shares the sterile bubble of her existence with her long-term fiancé, Bill (Mike Doyle), who is understandably confused by Lucy's sudden appearance...and, more than likely, Lucy's strong accent as well.

Savoca ensures that the audience develops no empathy or affection for either of the central protagonists, thus making Union Square a somewhat tortuous experience. Personalities are cranked up way past 11 in what turns out to be an acting showcase designed specifically to highlight Sorvino's dramatic range. Unfortunately, Union Square comes off as being a bit too over-directed, specifically because of some surprising plot twists that come inexplicably from nowhere. This is a story that would have benefited greatly from significantly less amplification of emotions.

FILM REVIEW: TRISHNA

Trishna (Frieda Pinto) in Trishna.

Another Tess of time and place

By Ed Rampell

English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom has adapted his countryman Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, which mostly takes place in 19^th century rural Britain. In Winterbottom’s updated version, Tess becomes Trishna and the film is set in contemporary India, with a mostly Indian cast, starring the preternaturally beautiful Freida Pinto (the female lead in 2009’s Best Picture Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire) in the title role.

Adaptations can be risky business. The good news is that Winterbottom’s reworking of Hardy’s classic is inspired. His update hews somewhat close to Hardy in terms of plot, but is especially true thematically, more faithful to the original in spirit than in letter.

The changes currently sweeping India parallel those in Hardy’s novel set against the backdrop of England’s 19^th century industrial revolution, as economic upheavals forced the peasantry away from the countryside and into the cities. Trishna (Pinto, arguably motion pictures’ prettiest actress today) is a simple country girl whose beauty attracts Jay (as in Gatsby!)Singh, the son of an upper class family of Indian ancestry who has lived abroad. Jay is depicted by Oxford educated Riz Ahmed, who is of Indian/Pakistani heritage and starred as Shafiq Rasul, one of the railroaded Tipton Three in Winterbottom’s 2006 searing indictment of torture, The Road to Guantanamo.

Besotted by Trishna’s beauty, Jay pursues her, using his class advantages to lure her away from her ancestral village in Rajasthan, first to a luxury resort owned by his worldly wise if blind father (Roshan Seth). But the hotel biz is not for Jay; as he has show biz aspirations Jay moves to Bombay (Mumbai), where he and Trishna can live openly as an unmarried couple. The couple gets involved in Bollywood, but as one artist points out, Jay’s main talent is that his father is rich.

Trishna, on the other hand, not only has beauty, but can dance, and it seems as if this slumdog might become a millionaire by appearing in Bollywood musicals. But talentless Jay, who wants to keep her all to himself, discourages her. As a lower class -- or caste -- female Trishna is curiously passive. The story shows how in patriarchal society, all too often young women have little recourse for social advancement other than their looks, sexuality and youth. A tragic predicament, to be sure, especially in pre-feminist developing nations (although India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all had female heads of government and of state, while America is yet to have a woman president, so perhaps our ladies are not that much freer than their Third World sisters?).

Complications ensue and the couple must relocate to another one of Jay’s family’s resorts in the countryside, where social mores are more traditional and out-of-wedlock relationships are taboo. The property formerly was a palace, and Jay is ensconced in the bedroom of a medieval maharajah who had about 18 concurrent concubines. Meanwhile, it never seems to occur to Jay to wed his social “inferior” Trishna, who must pretend to be just another servant girl, as she becomes the Kama Sutra-reading hotelier’s virtual sex slave. Sometimes, beauty can be a curse.

The uprooted, cosmopolitan Jay seems to yearn for what he supposes is Trishna’s simplicity, rooted in ancient Indian culture. On the other hand, Trishna sees in Jay her entrée -- or, more crudely put -- ticket to that modern world beckoning to India’s rural masses, as urbanization, outsourcing and the like rock their age-old society. They are caught between two worlds. Opposites may attract, but they can also repel. Trishna’s humble origins have denied her an education, but beneath her passivity a fire is being stoked. Unable to verbally express herself, let’s just say that all hell breaks loose.

D.W. Griffith believed film photographs thought, and the Pinto wears her character’s inner life upon the sleeve of her exquisite face. She is such a natural thespian that we can virtually read her mind in close ups, an expressively eloquent actress in the tradition of the great silent screen artistes, like Mae Marsh and Lillian Gish. In films such as 2010’s Miral and Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, whether playing an oppressed Palestinian or a London beauty who bewitches Josh Brolin’s married writer, Pinto demonstrates a range and depth. Imparting a Third World aesthetic on the screen, the Bombay-born actress and former model heralds a breakthrough in world cinema.

Winterbottom’s relocating of Tess of the d'Urbervilles to India is an eureka! movie moment, enhanced by its on location shooting in the subcontinent. To paraphrase Mel Brooks, I extend a laurel and Thomas Hardy handshake to Winterbottom.

 

  

  

 

FILM REVIEW: SAVAGES

O (Blake Lively) and Lobo (Benicio Del Toro) in Savages.

Throwing Stone

By Don Simpson

In what is being heralded by some as a “return to form,” writer-director Oliver Stone relies all-too-heavily upon the voiceover narration of O (Blake Lively) -- who teases us with hints that she might just be communicating with us from the afterlife -- to set up her three-way relationship with entrepreneurial marijuana cultivators, Ben (Aaron Johnson) and Chon (Taylor Kitsch). You see, Ben and Chon share O, sometimes at the same time (adding fuel to the right-wing's perception of marijuana as an immoral drug), and as long as the two guys are capable of providing O with orgasms-a-plenty and a credit card (for binge shopping at the mall, of course) she will stick around.

As if attempting to take a page from John Woo's playbook, Ben and Chon have an intense brotherly bond, but they have very little in common. Chon is an ex-Navy SEAL who has been forever traumatized by harrowing tours of Afghanistan and Iraq (while having sex with O, he has "wargasms"). In other words, he is the irrational brawn of the duo. Ben is a peaceful Buddhist who donates much of his time and money to help save the world. In other words, he is the rational brains of the duo.

Ben and Chon have cultivated a strand of Afghan marijuana that clocks in at an unfathomable 33% THC and their primo product puts their exclusively high-class indie start-up on the radar of a gargantuan Mexican drug cartel (the Walmart of the drug world). The cartel's leader, Elena (Salma Hayek), wants to bring Ben and Chon's highly profitable business into her fold, but Ben and Chon naively snub their noses at Elena's offer (Chon tersely exclaims, "You want us to eat your shit and call it caviar?!"). The problem is, no one ever says no to Elena and gets away with it! Thus, Elena's dastardly-yet-cartoonish henchman Lobo (Benicio Del Toro) kidnaps O, and all the while he twirls his mustache. Luckily for Ben and Chon, they have an elite squad of ex-Navy SEALs and topnotch IT team at their disposal, which they assemble to plan a scheme to get O back. Somewhere in the middle of the whole mess is a corrupt DEA agent, Dennis (John Travolta).

As much as I wanted Savages to be a return to form for Stone, the film is way too riddled with amateurish mistakes and uneven direction to be compared to the films of his heyday -- which, in my humble opinion, came to a grinding halt in 1997 with U-Turn. Yes, I get that Savagesis intended to be a trashy, fun, pulp-y, genre flick -- the problem is that we all know what Stone is (or was) capable of. I might have been willing to cut Stone a little slack if not for the clunky voiceover narration in the film's opening minutes and the horrendous closing act. Really, the only reason to watch Savages is for John Travolta and Benicio Del Toro's masterfully comedic supporting performances (especially during the one scene in which they face-off) -- though I am still quite unclear as to whether they are intentionally being funny.

Speaking of muddled intent, what is Stone really trying to say about marijuana and the war on drugs? Other than a couple heavy-handed attempts to drag medical marijuana into the equation, the perception of marijuana in Savages seems to be incredibly negative. Our perpetually stoned antiheroes -- Ben, Chon and O (who visualize themselves as a modern Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) -- have reaped millions from the marijuana business, but have lost sight on reality because of their over-reliance upon their own highly potent product. Stone seems to be telling us that marijuana turns people into stupid capitalists who are addicted to materialism.

As for the war on drugs? Well, Stone simply relishes in its ridiculousness. The running joke is that each party views the other parties as savages; but if they all just worked together, there would probably be no need for violence. I guess I expected a little more from Stone, especially given the rare opportunity of featuring a female cartel leader. But, Stone turns Elena into a woman who is just as irrational and brutal as any male cartel leaders we have seen on celluloid. The only difference is that she has a weakness -- her motherly instinct to want to see her daughter (Sandra Echeverría).