The Age of Commercialism

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Twenty years ago an Oliver Stone film would be an event but the director has become wayward of late.This marks a return to form but it revisits his screenplay of Scarface too much in places aided with his kinetic camera work and filming style used in Natural Born Killers but here it hinders the flow.Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is peace loving hippy Buddhist and his best buddy Chon (Taylor Kitsch) a former soldier have developed the best type of marijuana which have made them successful in southern California.Both also share the same woman Ophelia (Blake Lively) and life is going swimmingly until the Mexican Baja Cartel demands that they join forces with them and later kidnap Ophelia.The cartel is ruthlessly led by Elena (Salma Hayek) her brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio Del Toro) wants Elena but also realises he needs to make his own moves.Ben and Chon realise they need to take on the cartel and free Ophelia and they can only do this with the help of the slippery and crooked DEA agent (John Travolta) a man who has worked out all the angles.The film is hampered by the constant narration by Lively as well as her performance which is less than lively. She certainly looks like someone who enchant two best friends but she can never mesmerise the audience.Kitsch's character is one dimensional, just a gung ho grunt which leaves Johnson to make up for the shortcomings of the two main leads. At least his character is more subtle learning the hard way that being involved in the drugs trade does not go hand in hand with being a peace loving beatnik. He has to toughen up and gets his hands bloody.The film works mainly because of the supporting actors. Hayek, Travolta (with his natural balding hairline) Bichir and Del Toro make the most of their thin characterisations, people who are rooted to their families despite being savages.Stone makes up for the rest with his filming style with an operatic approach to violence but why were we presented with an alternate version of the climax?

Nothing special. Plot just rambles along, with a few holes and inconsistencies in it. At no stage do you feel engaged by or empathy with the lead characters. Just intriguing enough to keep you interested. Oliver Stone's direction is solid though, especially considering the script and some of the actors he had to work with.Movies is marred by the lead performances, all by relatively unknown/B- grade actors. Blake Lively and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are out of their depth in the movie - both performances are weak and unconvincing. Taylor Kitsch is mostly OK though. Supporting cast is where the big names are: Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta. Hayek and Del Toro give the most compelling performances of the movie - gritty and convincing. Travolta is irritating, trying too hard to be smooth and cool.

What we have here is a Mexican cartel drug thriller from director Oliver Stone. What could go wrong with that? The film is dripping with sun-bleached style, and there's plenty of violence and sex in the mix. A shame, then, that the script is so very predictable and makes huge and continuous mistakes throughout, leaving this a failure of a movie.The first problem with the film is the entire lack of likable characters. Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch are the most vapid and unlikeable leads ever; they follow in the line of the usual pothead dummy heroes (as in American ULTRA and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) and I hated both of them from the very beginning. Blake Lively's character is rubbish, a typical air-head blonde, and the viewer is forced to sit through her extended screen time for no little reason other than to pad the story out.Which leads me into the running time: this is way too long for what should be a tense and exciting thriller. Lots of it feels repetitive or boring. There are a few action highlights, but the overall mood is artificial and long-winded. John Travolta gives the best performance in his minor role as a corrupt drugs agent, but check out Salma Hayek's cartel boss; she's surprisingly terrible. And I'm still not sure what to make of Benicio del Toro's character, and I don't think the scriptwriters knew what to do with him either...

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.