So many terrifying things are on view at second-run theaters this weekend: killer drug dealers, Katy Perry and Adam Sandler. ---
Oliver Stone's Savages adapts Don Winslow's book about a couple of small-time California pot dealers who wind up on the wrong side of a Mexican cartel. There's quite a lot of solid stuff here, including juicy roles for terrific supporting performances by Benicio Del Toro, John Travolta and Salma Hayek. But it's all ruined by an ending that erases any of the book's sense of moral consequence. Sometimes it's a curse having read the book first.
The concert/biography film Katy Perry: Part of Me also debuts at the discount houses, telling the story of the pop singer's rise to fame interspersed with performance footage. And the ongoing horror that is Adam Sandler's cinematic career brings us That's My Boy, which attempts to find big laughs in the story of a guy who was born as the result of an affair between an adolescent and his middle-school teacher. Take your risk on either of those, depending on whether you find the sexual exploitation of a minor or Kate Perry's music potentially entertaining.