Savages (2012)

This was an awful movie that managed to be full of action and still bored me to pieces.

O (Blake Lively) is paramour to two rising stars in the pot growing business.  Ben (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is the botanist/humanitarian while Chon (Taylor Kitsch) is the muscle.  But the boys are getting pressure to cut a deal with a Mexican cartel led by La Reina Elena (Salma Hayek).  She has O kidnapped to ensure their cooperation but all that does is piss them off.

I don't even know what I hated most about this movie.  It could have been the vapid and unnecessary voiceover at random intervals as O narrates things we can see happening.  It could be the absolute waste of excellent actors.  Or the dull seen-it-a-million-times storyline.  But as I reflect, more and more of my ire is leveled against the fake-out ending.

**SPOILERS (maybe) FROM THIS POINT ON**

Okay.  The fake-out "this is how I wished it had happened" or "it was all a dream" or "this is a version of the future that hasn't happened yet but it will if you don't do x, y and z" ending is such a bullshit thing.  On the rare occasions where it has been pulled off successfully, it is amazing and I am 150% sure that is why people still attempt it.

It does not work here.

First, all you've done is jerk the audience around.  No one likes that.

Second, you've now created an unreliable narrator.  If I can't trust this character's version of the ending, how can I trust anything she's said up to this point?

Third, her "this is what I wish had happened" version is so stupid and self-destructive that it makes me want to punch her in the throat.  Honestly, if you'd rather bleed out with your two boyfriends than admit that eventually one of the three of you is going to become dissatisfied with your current arrangement, you don't deserve to have either of them.  It is such a spoiled 22-year-old who's never worked for anything kind of wish.

Fourth,  the "real" ending is so banal.  If you can't top the fake ending, why would you even bother?

Avoid.