Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone returns to Natural Born Killers mode in an adaptation of Don Winslow’s best-selling novel
about two peaceful Laguna Beach marijuana dealers targeted by a Mexican drug cartel. Life becomes “Ben (Aaron Johnson) & Chun’s (Taylor Kitsch’s)
Excellent Adventure!”
Ophelia (Blake Lively) named for the “bi-polar basket-case Shakespearean character who committed suicide” narrates the tale about Chun, a 2-tour psycho soldier…he’s ticking-time-bomb
mess. But Ben is a Buddhist dude who majored in Botany and smuggled seeds from foreign lands in order to grow a garden that within six years built a Showtime’s
“Weeds” empire in California.
Enter Elena (Salma Hayek, in one of her best performances to date) who oversees the Mexican cartel and wants a piece of their action. She dispatches her top henchman, Lado
(Benico Del Toro in his best performance to date) Del Toro should stick with Oliver in all future films that will translate to more Oscars…
When things get rough, Ben and Chun turn to DEA agent (John Travolta) resurrecting his old-man version of Pulp Fiction.
Feeling a bit Ted Demme’s Blow, this film is the Scarface of weed with its concept being that when the bad guy smells fear he attacks…they’re savages. Of course the bad guys keep upping the ante:
“We had a deal. Elena expects compliance!” Not knowing who should trust who, Stone the master of mayhem, his strong-point is story-telling…give us a story teeming
with ruthless thugs that make the Taliban seem sane. This is Stone at his resurrected best, though one never quite buys that an angry Navy Seal would share his woman no matter how much
wacky-tabacky he’s been smoking. That said, the three amigos take their love life seriously and hold life sacred, so somehow the audience is forced to, too.
Stone is a master behind the camera focusing on details that ‘up’ the insanity….rocking soundtrack, the type that gets one pumped to kill, and then snapshots of
bloodied victims clicked on cell phone cameras, the better to share with loved ones later. With Stone knowing Mexico,
having spent a good deal of his life below-the-border and even naming his production company IXTLAN for the city, it was only a matter of time before the
need to pour his passion for this Tijuana mayhem crept in. The story is tainted with some Oliver pot-infused ego but it’s raw, gritty, effective and
sensational at its best. Take a toke and come along for the ride. Screen Queen says: Three and a half tiaras