Oliver Stone, the firebrand filmmaker behind Platoon, JFK and Natural Born Killers, has been on a real losing streak since his career bombed hard with Alexander in 2004. So no one was really all that surprised when his 2012 crime caper, The Savages, turned out to be absolute gubbins. The main issue was apparent - Stone had quite simply just become a mediocre filmmaker, the kind of director who thought a Wall Street sequel with the guy from Transformers was a good idea. There was also the problem of the cast, which, though peppered with solid acting talent like Benicio del Toro and Demian Bichir, had 100% more Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Taylor Kitsch than any movie should ideally have. Stone wasn't helping himself by cutting one of the few good actors in his film: Uma Thurman was originally to star as the mother of Blake Lively's character, but was removed in the editing room. The film would have reunited Thurman with Pulp Fiction and Be Cool co-star John Travolta, an actor who was inexplicably allowed to remain in the film over her.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
