Savage Salvation (2022) Review

rating: ****

the story: An ex-military ace seeks revenge on the system that allowed his wife to overdose.

review: Such are the times that star actors can see their movies swallowed into a void.  Robert De Niro costars in this, but his presence didn't prevent such a fate for Savage Salvation, which also features John Malkovich and stars Jack Huston.

Huston's the reason I made sure to watch.  The latest of a storied Hollywood family, he's struggled to find footing since Ben-Hur, which otherwise suggested to me a new talent worth following, but few enough starring roles to show for it.  Most of the story beats of Salvation are well-trodden material, so it's not something you watch for originality, but I've certainly never let it get in the way of spending time with quality actors.  De Niro is in subdued mode, and for him Salvation is No Country for Old Men, Hell or High Water territory.  You wait for Malkovich's part to amount to something, and on that score the end twist is telegraphed, as Huston discovers the system is all too happy to exploit individuals without much concern to the consequences.  Waiting for that to play out is more suspenseful than the revenge rampage Huston undertakes, or the withdrawal scenes he appears in.

With so little to show for his career to this point, Huston had a lot riding on whether or not he could carry Salvation, and to my mind he does, and for that reason watching him find a context in the rampage, how he carries himself is worth the experience.  The greater narrative around all of this, the eponymous concept, both when the body of his wife is baptized and when he himself sinks into the water at the end, it gives depth to the rampage that can sometimes be relegated only to the original impetus, since the reward tends to be reduced to mere memory, rather than consequences or some greater goal, which in this case is finding peace, from a community that both supports him (De Niro) and betrays him (Malkovich), as well as beyond it.

Where Huston goes from this point I'm as eager as ever to find out.