Savage Salvation Review: A 70s Look For A Contemporary Thriller

Cast: Jack Huston, Willa Fitzgerald, Robert De Niro, John Malkovich

Director: Randall Emmett

Streaming Platform: Amazon Prime Video

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

On December 6, the action-tinged thriller Savage Salvation made its debut in the rich Prime Video catalog; directed by the tradesman Randall Emmett, the film boasts a respectable cast composed, among others, of Jack Huston, Robert De Niro and John Malkovich. However, these high-sounding names are not enough to justify the viewing of a film that, certainly born for the variegated direct-to-video cinema market, does not know which artistic and narrative direction to take, giving life to a feature film at times rambling.

In our review of Savage Salvation, we will focus precisely on how much the film directed by Randall Emmett paradoxically commits more than a “mortal sin” from a cinematic point of view, erring the tones from his film and nong anyone of its potential spectators, deceived by the presence (sometimes redundant) of actors of the caliber of De Niro and Malkovich.

Savage Salvation Review: The Story Plot

In our review of Savage Salvation, we will focus precisely on how much the film directed by Randall Emmett paradoxically commits more than a “mortal sin” from a cinematic point of view, erring the tones from his film and not anyone of its potential spectators, deceived by the presence (sometimes redundant) of actors of the caliber of De Niro and Malkovich.

Savage Salvation is the new film directed by Randall Emmett, an already unsuspected producer behind titles directed by Martin Scorsese such as Silence and The Irishman, and the commercial successes of films with Bruce Willis such as First Kill and Hard Kill. Although this is his second feature film as a director (the first was the unlucky Midnight in the Switchgrass), Emmett is a true veteran of unabashedly commercial thriller and action cinema, a medal for his Savage Salvation.

Savage Salvation Review and Analysis

Of course, what initially strikes the viewer is the packaging with which Randall Emmett delivers his feature film to the Prime Video audience: the direction of photography, in particular, seems to follow the look that belongs to a certain b-series cinema of the years ’70, dirty and with a thick and rough watermark, as if to give a certain compactness and a coherent visual incipit to the tragedy that will strike its two young protagonists. But then, of the great genre cinema of the 70s, Savage Salvation shares very little else, concerned as it is with entertaining its potential audience with a narrative structure that is initially daring and interesting but then gradually faded with the rise of the second part.

The cast assembled by Emmett, among other things, is also very respectable: the two protagonists in love are played by Willa Fitzgerald and by a feral and effective Jack Huston, while the two think about the tragic love story with final revenge. heavyweights of American cinema: the Oscar winner Robert De Niro (here in the role of the rough sheriff Church) and an unprecedented John Malkovich. Especially the character played by the first makes an interesting counterpoint to the cursed story of the two young men; he, an agent of the senior order, disillusioned and haunted by a painful past, takes charge of the search for the alleged killer of drug traffickers in the city and who, in a certain way, understands, albeit, in a different form, the pain and anger felt by Shelby John after Ruby’s untimely death.

The untimely death of Ruby Red leads Huston’s protagonist to embark on a painful path of revenge towards the hierarchy responsible for the sudden death of his ex-partner; a path, the one that Shelby John decides to start, which increasingly has the flavor of personal redemption. A real baptism of fire for the male protagonist that takes the form of violent executions and adrenaline-filled action scenes, albeit rather conventional, but which in the end go well with narrative coherence with the ambition of the international title of Randall Emmett’s film.

Savage Salvation, is an exhortation from the American film to wash away not only one’s sins but also one’s faults, one’s weaknesses, failures and the suffering of living a life crushed by the inquisitive specter of narcotic addiction. A cumbersome ghost that breaks Ruby’s tormented existence but at the same time gives new life to Shelby John, ready to embark on a path of revenge not very dissimilar from an atonement for the sins of his past.

Undoubtedly heartfelt and interesting themes are those offered by the original screenplay signed by Adam Taylor Barker and Chris Sivertson, which however give life to a rambling direct-to-video feature film that fails to mix the tones of the narrative at least with balance. If the premises of Savage Salvation are certainly captivating, the same cannot be said of the developments of the second act, when Randalle Emmett’s film turns into a revenge movie completely out of toneconcerningo the atmosphere and almost southern references gothic that had characterized the incipit of the tragic love story between Shelby John and Ruby Red.

A fatal sin that leads the film available on Prime Video into the predictable realm of banality, both narrative and staging, superficial and ultimately unattractive. A pity, because there is nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy an exquisitely commercial and unpretentious film, crushed however in this specific case by totally out of-place and dysfunctional ambitions and artistic choices.

Savage Salvation Review: The Last Words

Savage Salvation has all the trappings of direct-to-video film and the pretensions that go with it, only it also has the guts to assemble an interesting cast made up of Robert De Niro and John Malkovich, among others. Wasted interpreters for a film that constantly sheds its skin, never knowing which direction to take; but when he does, he takes the wrong one.