There is a scene in Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon 2 when Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh dispatches some hoods with a nail gun, after which he quips ‘Nailed them both’. This scene contains more wit, drama, tension and filmmaking competence than the entire 101 minutes of Savage Justice, which is also called Savage Salvation depending on whether you are at the opening credits with eager anticipation or the end credits with great relief.
We open partway through the drama, a device which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, as an obscured figure extracts bloody retribution with a nail gun. Conceivably, the use of this tool as a weapon is to make a point about working-class protagonists making the most of what they can, but this soggy revenge thriller is below the standards of Man On Fire, The Equaliser or even Taken, though it seemingly wants to be all of them. The Georgia setting provides a hot and sticky environment, much like Man On Fire. There’s an aspect of the forgotten dregs of society who get exploited by wealthy criminals, like The Equaliser. There’s an exploitation aspect with the one-man army who will use all manner of brutality and violence with a righteous edginess like in Taken. None of these titles are classics, but next to Savage Justice they are all Citizen Kane (maybe not Taken, but that clearly created enough of a vibe to spawn a franchise).
The Deep South setting is a great opportunity, and it does allow for clear class divisions and some grimy locations, although more could have been made of these beyond Shelby working at a dock and being offered a better position by a wealthy business owner.
After the opening nailing, we flashback to (very) aged Sheriff Church (Robert De Niro) channelling Tommy Lee Jones from No Country For Old Men about how things used to be not so bad and now death is everywhere. Everyone involved in this film looks thoroughly foolish to have invoked the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece. We then meet Shelby John (Jack Huston) and Ruby Red (Willa Fitzgerald), a couple of junkies who get engaged and decide that this is the motivation they need to get clean. Cue a cold turkey montage of these lovebirds shivering and sweating, hating each other but loving each other and letting us learn that true love beats addiction! Except it doesn’t and when things turn bad, Shelby goes on a mission of, you guessed it, savage justice.
The Deep South setting is a great opportunity, and it does allow for clear class divisions and some grimy locations, although more could have been made of these beyond Shelby working at a dock and being offered a better position by a wealthy business owner. The grime does not extend to the substance of the film, as the characters always look freshly washed and made up. Worse, the action set pieces, while amply stocked with bullets, veer from video game-style intimacy to long-shot distancing. This whiplash style is as distracting as the inconsistent gunplay, as one minute we follow Shelby flattening himself against a wall Looney Tunes style and the next he seems to be in a John Woo film. Director Randall Emmett and screenwriters Adam Taylor Barker and Chris Siverston pad the film needlessly with a vague tragic backstory for Sheriff Church, possibly so that De Niro had a reason to wake up, and more insultingly force in a clumsy religious aspect, which might explain the title of Savage Salvation. Shelby, however, comes across as someone who thinks all he can do is kill rather than an avenging angel. Rather than exploring issues of sin, redemption, salvation or making parallels with parables, the theology in Savage Justice consists of Peter (John Malkovich) blathering creakily on the will of God in whatever circumstances suit the scene, and some painfully heavy-handed baptism sequences.
After the opening act of jarringly edited but softly lensed romance combatting addiction, a second act of brutal and wince-inducing violence, including some knee torture, a final act twist reeks of desperation and stretches this out far longer than it needed. The final overhead shots express the idea of love somehow transcending physical bodies is again fumbled so much as to be painful. And perhaps worst of all is the deeply intrusive soundtrack, with songs played over various sequences that distract from rather than enhance the drama. The only savage justice around here is to savagely review the film. Consider justice served.
Signature Entertainment presents Savage Salvation on Digital Platforms 12th December & DVD 13th February
