You ought to see this movie if for no other reason than to watch James Woods' great performance. He plays a journalist who's days of glory and prestige have long begun to wane. His sidekick throughout the movie is Dr. Rock, a has-been DJ, drug-and-booze soaked, prone to whining and ill-health, but who provides much of the movie's comic relief. The spend most of the movie chasing stories that never get written, drinking, gobbling drugs, and dodging bullets....
Yes, this movie has a decidedly left-wing political message. And yes,it is bumptiously, clumsily delivered--with the grace and insight of an 18-year-old college radical a little too full of himself. The action speaks for itself--dead bodies everywhere, the American military hovering nearby constantly. But just in case we don't get it, the characters lecture us with familiar left vs. right themes, crow with indignation, and denounce the military characters, who are one-dimensional and disgusting. U.S. involvement is simplified far too much. To his credit, though, Stone does not try to sanitize the leftist guerillas, who we see are as brutal as the regime they are fighting. (And just in case we don't get THAT--despite seeing them shoot captured soldiers in the head, calmly and methodically--Woods starts screaming, "You're just as bad as they are!" Well, duh!)
Another problem is that we learn very little about El Salvador beyond the violence and pretty much constant whoring around of the American characters. Since setting is so important to this movie, a little more development in this area would have been useful...Since Woods' character had been there before, at least some of this could have been conveyed through flashback. But as things stand, we have very little idea of what sort of culture actually is at stake.
Still, the drama is compelling, the characters engaging (sordid, but engaging!), the performances great. If Stone handles the politics ham-handedly, he manages to introduce moments of comedy--very human comedy--in a story that is wrought with despair. Belushi is a riot as the kvetching Dr. Rock, who unwittingly comes along for the ride from San Francisco to El Salvador (he thinks they're going to Guatamala), and finds himself being brutalized by Salvadoran military, police, infected by the water (and prostitutes)...generally having a rought time of it. Woods is a scream, too, when he tries to rehabilitate himself for his love, a young mother half his age. His scene in the confessional is very funny.
Somehow, Wood's Boyle manages to find himself a part of the major Salvadoran revolutionary moments that are now familiar to us here in the U.S. Archbishop Romero, for instance, is assassinated right in front of him, just after Boyle has reveived Holy Communion from him. Also, Boyle is a close friend of the Catholic lay worker who was raped and killed with the nuns on the way back to San Salvador.
Despite some of the clumsiness, this movie has a great deal of energy, and anyone who REALLY wants to see James Woods act cannot miss this. Political dramas fail when it compells characters to act woodenly, or unbelieveably (see "The Contender" for an example of this). "Salvador" remains a human drama first, and political expostulation second...See it.
Yes, this movie has a decidedly left-wing political message. And yes,it is bumptiously, clumsily delivered--with the grace and insight of an 18-year-old college radical a little too full of himself. The action speaks for itself--dead bodies everywhere, the American military hovering nearby constantly. But just in case we don't get it, the characters lecture us with familiar left vs. right themes, crow with indignation, and denounce the military characters, who are one-dimensional and disgusting. U.S. involvement is simplified far too much. To his credit, though, Stone does not try to sanitize the leftist guerillas, who we see are as brutal as the regime they are fighting. (And just in case we don't get THAT--despite seeing them shoot captured soldiers in the head, calmly and methodically--Woods starts screaming, "You're just as bad as they are!" Well, duh!)
Another problem is that we learn very little about El Salvador beyond the violence and pretty much constant whoring around of the American characters. Since setting is so important to this movie, a little more development in this area would have been useful...Since Woods' character had been there before, at least some of this could have been conveyed through flashback. But as things stand, we have very little idea of what sort of culture actually is at stake.
Still, the drama is compelling, the characters engaging (sordid, but engaging!), the performances great. If Stone handles the politics ham-handedly, he manages to introduce moments of comedy--very human comedy--in a story that is wrought with despair. Belushi is a riot as the kvetching Dr. Rock, who unwittingly comes along for the ride from San Francisco to El Salvador (he thinks they're going to Guatamala), and finds himself being brutalized by Salvadoran military, police, infected by the water (and prostitutes)...generally having a rought time of it. Woods is a scream, too, when he tries to rehabilitate himself for his love, a young mother half his age. His scene in the confessional is very funny.
Somehow, Wood's Boyle manages to find himself a part of the major Salvadoran revolutionary moments that are now familiar to us here in the U.S. Archbishop Romero, for instance, is assassinated right in front of him, just after Boyle has reveived Holy Communion from him. Also, Boyle is a close friend of the Catholic lay worker who was raped and killed with the nuns on the way back to San Salvador.
Despite some of the clumsiness, this movie has a great deal of energy, and anyone who REALLY wants to see James Woods act cannot miss this. Political dramas fail when it compells characters to act woodenly, or unbelieveably (see "The Contender" for an example of this). "Salvador" remains a human drama first, and political expostulation second...See it.