Neil Gray
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Freaks and Geeks of all ages. Welcome, once again, to the Trailer of the Week. That’s right folks, last Saturday’s article was so well-received they’ve let me do another. And by ‘…so well-received’ I mean about five of you read it, but you lucky quintet are about to have another dose of what I consider greatness thrust down your neck. I mean, as long as you live in the US that is.
Savage is a little film from New Zealand that has been doing the rounds since October of 2019 but is finally getting its release Stateside, via VOD, on Jan. 29, 2021. Now, if you know anything about me from my musings on this site it should be that I like my music heavy and my movies violent, and Savage ticks that last box with aplomb. According to the promotional blurb:
Inspired by stories from New Zealand’s boys homes and the early history of our gangs, Savage follows Danny across three decades of his life: from the abusive state-run boys’ institutions of the sixties; to the emerging urban gang scene in the seventies where disenfranchised teenagers created their own families on the streets; to the eighties when gangs became more structured, criminal, and violent.”
The Savage trailer shows this perfectly. Covering all three acts of Danny’s life from him meeting up with the young boy who would be central in everything he does in a children’s home when they were kids, through his rejection of his negligent father in his teens and early twenties, to the full-on gang enforcer he becomes in his later years.
It sets its stall out early. This is not going to be a movie for the faint of heart. Everything that Danny does always seems to end in violence and even though it doesn’t show any of the ultra blood-letting here, you can tell by the way it’s edited together that that’s only because they didn’t want to have a red band stuck in the title.
But there’s more to Savage than first meets the eye and it looks as if this is as much a story of brotherhood as it is about kicking ass and taking names. The gangs are represented as the family that neither of the two main protagonists had and it’s this reliance on each other and total blind loyalty that seems to suggest that life it’s going to end well for Danny.
If like me, you’ve always had a fascination with the darker side of life, then Savage could be the perfect way to indulge your interest without getting patched over yourself.
So what do you think of the trailer for Savage? Do you agree with Neil? Let us know in the comments! And if you’re looking for horror trailers we’ve got you covered!
