Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2013

Two boutique pot-growers (Taylor Kitsch the muscle, Aaron Johnson the brains) find themselves the targets of a takeover bid by a Mexican drug cartel run by Salma Hayek. And to emphasize that the bid is of the hostile variety, she sends in slimy sociopath Benicio Del Toro to kidnap their shared squeeze (Blake Lively, out of her depth). Oliver Stone’s adaptation of Don Winslow’s drug-fueled thriller feels calculated and campy. In the book I cared; in the movie I didn’t. It contains horrible (but not gratuitous) violence. What is gratuitous is the cop-out ending. Stone should know better.