Pfad der Vergeltung

"If that wasn't god pushing me to do his business I don't know what was"

Savage Salvation is directed by Randall Emmett and stars Jack Huston, Willa Fitzgerald, Robert De Niro and John Malkovich.

The latest geezer teaser arrives, directed by the king of the geezer teasers himself Randall Emmett. Have you ever seen a low quality movie in the clearance section of your local Target etc with a big name attached? Like Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, Robert De Niro and John Travolta for example. Chances are this Randall Emmett guy is a producer on it. Everyone should know the process on how these movies get made. You attach an aging older male action star like listed above, then you cast a B list younger male actor as the true lead of the movie. And then fill out the rest of the cast usually with a bunch of D list actors no one has ever heard of before. It's provided early retirement and a nice paycheck for most of these aging stars and Savage Salvation is no different.

So if you couldn't tell by now Savage Salvation is not a good movie. The best part of this movie is easily Jack Huston and the best parts of this movie are when he's involved in a Vigilante Justice killing spree. Besides that there's not much else here to recommend. The story is very weak and not very compelling. The movie tries to craft a message on drug use I guess? However it wasn't done well at all. Robert De Niro and John Malkovich are obviously just here for a paycheck. (Thank god De Niro has Killers Of The Flower Moon on the horizon) But yeah besides Jack Huston nothing about this movie is good.

Once you've seen one of these geezer teaser movies you've really seen them all. In general Savage Salvation is a mess that doesn't know what it wants to be. A faith pandering movie, a message about drug use and a vigilante action thriller are all thrown in the blender here with incredibly weak results.

Ruby Red (Willa Fitzgerald) and Shelby John (Jack Huston) get engaged and want to get clean of the drugs they were taking. Ruby Red wants to be baptized, too, and start life clean and free. But a drug dealer gets to Ruby Red. Shelby is beside himself and goes to kill all the drug dealers. Sheriff Church (Robert DeNiro and his deputy need to stop this killing spree.

Probably Bruce Willis should have played the Sheriff as DeNiro's performance looked a lot like a Wills slow walking gig in this low budget story. DeNiro had very little to do except near the end when he confronts Shelby with a gun.

No, most of the story is all Ruby Red and Shelby and later mostly Shelby as he goes gunning for drug dealers. A kind of surprising tidbit is when the movie is all Ruby Red and Shelby, we really didn't care for either of them. Whose fault is that? Yes, we wanted them to get clean of drugs, but when they were going through the withdrawals we just wanted those scenes to be over with and they went on for too long a time.

Directors these days are finding more brutal ways of killing and torturing people and this promotes unease in my wanting to watch an entertaining story. Cringe-worthy is a good word watching this movie.

Notables: John Malkovich as Peter, a supporter of the Church, but there is more to Peter as you will see; Clay Wilcox as Darius, a drug dealer; Quavo as Coyote as a drug runner.

This is watchable especially if you FF thru the killing and torturer scenes. Maybe this would have been better if the Sheriff didn't know that Shelby was the one killing drug dealers, but then again everyone knows everyone in a small town such as this was. (4/10)

Violence: Yes Sex: No.

Nudity: No.

Humor: No.

Language: Yes.

Rating: C.

Not any good? Some terrific actors are starring in this flop. Those actors are the only positive I can think of. I mean who can resist watching a movie with Robert de Niro and John Malkovich? They both only have got small supporting roles though for just some 15 minutes. Bummer.

The bad: this Randal Emmett guy, who has been a producer of LOTS OF pretty lousy B-movies in the past, now turned to directing a movie for only the second time and what a disaster of a movie he has made!

Everything is wrong with this movie, technically speaking. The photography is bland, the music score is incredibly annoying and totally not suited, the editing is all wrong.

But the biggest fail is the direction by Randall Emmett, who just doesnt know the first thing about how to dose and mix the right amount of ingredients.

Completely disjointed. Overly sentimental. Lots of chewed out cliches. Tedious from start till finish. What a mess of a movie...

This film had so much potential - interesting plot with lots to explore and expand on, amazing cast, good cinematography........ Let down by over the top and rushed action scenes and not enough detail and explanation to make it more than just ordinary.

With this calibre of actors and the basic idea and setting this has the potential to be so much more powerful and riveting.

There are elements that remind me of films such as 'Out of the Furnace' and 'No country for Old Men' but I feel these succeed through taking their time to detail the characters and provide an overview of where they're from and where they're going which means we are more invested in them and the story.. Apologies for not being more positive but this is a genre fav and I wa hoping for so-much more !

I could not stand to watch more than 20 minutes of this movie with such a terrible plot, acting, and terrible everything. Very sad to see a acting legends like Robert DeNiro and John Malkovich stoop this low to be in a B movie and a terrible one at that. DeNiro is so old which makes him a very unbelievable law enforcement officer and at that age probably couldn't chase a suspect for more than a few yards. The rest of the supporting actors and actresses well very average as well which did not help this movie at all. Directing, cinematography, location with all terrible. Ocean City hope that Robert DeNiro and John Malkovich malkovich well not participate in any more of this type of movies.