Customer Reviews

Salvador [VHS]

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

James Boyle, the journalist who actually lived this fascinating story, wrote this 1986 screenplay along with Oliver Stone, who also directed it. It takes place in El Salvador during in the early 1980s. War was raging and, depending upon which version you believe, it was either a Civil war against the military government or a potential communist takeover. People are being murdered every day and it's an awful place to be.

James Woods stars as James Boyle, a freelance journalist who had formerly been a reporter in Vietnam. His life in California is spinning out of control. He has no money, his wife has left him, and he craves the excitement of being where the action is. He and his disk jockey friend, Doctor Rock, played by James Belushi, drive down to El Salvador, drinking and drugging and spinning bad jokes all the way. At first it all seems like fun.

Then reality hits. And the two friends are plunged into the violence. There's one scene after another that made me cringe in horror. And yet, James Woods is quite a con man and keeps getting himself and his friend out of scrapes by his fast talking and former connections. He falls in love with a local woman, tells it like it is to the American Ambassador, and keeps getting into trouble. There's lots of action and lots of people getting killed. And yet, it's mainly about the personalities of the two lead characters. This adds a light touch to the horror that surrounds them.

It's a fast paced film without one dull moment. I couldn't stop watching and wondering what would happen next. The DVD extras feature a long documentary about the making of the film. That was interesting background and added to my enjoyment although by then I was dozing off. During the actual film, however, falling asleep would have been impossible.

Highly recommended.

This is without question the best film that Oliver Stone has ever or will ever create. Same goes for James Woods and James Belushi's performances. Stone does a marvelous job of introducing the viewer to the cultural and political changes as they drive south with Woods and Belushi in an old Mustang convertible. From that harrowing first moment that they have "arrived" in El Salvador, the film never lets up its intensity. Woods deserved a best actor Oscar for this role. A brave, poignant, and important film that manages to scare the hell out of you, entertain you, AND make you think. Welcome to El Salvador. Bravo!

Regarding the Special Edition DVD, the extra features are EXCELLENT! The "making of" of documentary was fascinating (if a tad vulgar). Also, you will appreciate Woods' performance all the more when you see how prudish he is in real life, and how much he despised the real life Richard Boyle (not to mention Oliver Stone). A great value for these extra features.

"Salvador" is a gritty, unrestrained trip into the chaos that is civil war, not just in the country it portrays, but civil war in any culture. It is Oliver Stone's first major movie and it vibrates with the passion and vibrant drive seen in his later works. This movie is so powerful and effective precisely because it feels REAL. There are scenes that almost have a documentary feeling to them. The camera work by Robert Richardson is gritty and rich at the same time while the screenplay by Stone and the real Richard Boyle is filled with wild moments, powerful scenes and hilarious comic touches. The performances are grade-A. James Woods is wicked but with a touching heart in this performance, it's probably his best. Jim Belushi is brilliantly funny. But "Salvador" aside from being a great entertainment, is also an important film document of the realities of war, of what happened in El Salvador and of the realities of what happened there. Like Stone's Vietnam movies, "Salvador" opens the eyes and ears and mind to what really was going on. It is an effective movie about events that happen in little corners of the world.

No, this is not a masterpiece, but it makes for highlyengrossing viewing. Viewers must be reminded that this film is not aHollywood production, but an independent film. Stone wrote, got the funding and shot this gutsy film as an independent. As an "indie" film, Salvador is among the very best that I've seen.

The "Abbot & Costello go to war" plot is a bit offensive, but ultimately effective: when the film was released, and today still, most Americans didn't know what was really going on in El Salvador, and this film manages to encapsulate the events leading up to the war by placing two naive Americans as witnesses. And yes, all of the events depicted in the film really happened, and they all happened before the war in El Salvador actually started in 1981.

I am from El Salvador, and I know that most Salvadorans hate the film for the relentless violence that it depicts. To be fair to Stone, the film depicts real events that took place within a period of 12 months (1980-81) the most violent period in the history of that country (20,000 were killed that year, mostly by death squads). To be fair to Salvadorans, the films misses on the cultural nuances: Salvadoran women do not parade naked in the beach and no, death squads were not killers only because they were people with pathological/physical problems, but because of their political and ideological views, unfortunately. Perhaps this is the question to ponder: why was the US even involved in this war and why did they supported people with such twisted ideologies?

I also know that the left often complained about the portrayal of the leftist guerrillas in the film. But I happen to know that even in this aspect Stone deserves credit. Stone obtained copies of the underground films and videos shot by guerrillas and used them as source of reference in creating the war scenes; so the images of the guerrillas are actually accurate. In fact, the video shown in the title credits is the actual footage of a massacre by the police on unarmed civilians standing on the steps of the Metropolitan Cathedral in El Salvador.

Stone is a great filmmaker who has made some great american films, and Salvador is essential viewing for those who admire the work of this director. This film also contains the finest work that James Woods has ever done. In fact, Salvador is carried by his character's viewpoint. Woods is in every scene, and he carries the film with crazed, nervous, relentless energy.

Watching this film of how El Salvador was torn apart from 1980-1992 is something not only Salvadoreans remember, but many people from different countries. Showing that in this particular Civil War there was really no good or bad side. A conflict of misunderstanding. For my parents and many Salvadoreans that migrated here to the United States, definitely the true meaning of trying to find a better life.

Without a doubt, Oliver Stone's masterpiece, 'Salvador,' is a great piece of film-making. Gritty, raw, and unrelentless, it drags you into a grim miasma of savagery and forces you to face a truly shameful chapter in American foreign policy. 1980, El Salvador. While Carter and Reagan slug it out for the keys to the world's largest 'democracy,' the wealthy elite of this Central American paradise realize their days of exploiting the have-nots are slowly eclipsing. With their CIA-trained advisors and Huey gunships, they embark on an all-out terror campaign to eliminate any opposition to their jack-booted oligarchy.

Up in safe El Norte, washed-out photo-journalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) spends his time evading rent, staring at soiled diapers and hungering for renewal, when Salvador comes knocking at his door. With his ravaged Ford Mustang, Boyle persuades his best friend (James Belushi) to accompany him on his grand adventure. Cruising down the verdant spine of Central America, things start to wrong, DESPERATELY WRONG as the tequila-swilling losers cross into El Salvador. Burnt-out cars, charred bodies and straw-hatted thugs block their way. Boyle's easy-living decadence gets a wake-up call. Here, there's no guarantee you have'll a tomorrow, much less a today. Boyle weasels himself out of danger by chumming with the head of the local death squad. Saved. But only momentarily, as Boyle and Co. sink deeper into the murderous quicksand that threatens to swallow them.

With the help of his ex-lover, Boyle begins to find the meaning his life has been lacking of late. In fact, he slowly realizes the need for a 'salvation' of sorts, when he reaffirms a childhood faith upon the urgings of his girlfriend. Yet, Boyle's real salvation comes with his engagement in the bigger picture. Forced to take sides, he first tries to stop the mayhem his own government has sanctioned and then slowly learns that in war, everybody's hands are bloody. Knowing that his film rolls are the only hope for change, he ditches his dreams of Pulitzer-glory and escapes north with lover and children in tow. Almost on the verge of death, Boyle scraps through to the land 'where you can do anything you want,' only to be tragically robbed of that which has redeemed him.

With 'Salvador,' Stone has crafted an intricate political thriller where there are no easy answers. True to his colors, Stone deals his country an extremely shady hand in this film. With the exception of Boyle and his sidekick, the Americans portrayed in this film are nothing short of caricatures. With their coiffed blonde-hair, Don Ho shirts and cardigans, they scream of arrogant imperialism, blinded by fear, 'if Salvador falls, we'll have tanks on Rio Grande!' and by pure greed. Over-the-top no doubt, but not without grounds, lest we forget Allende's Chile. But Stone is no mere polemicist, he DOES show the murky complexity of things, the often-clouded demarcation between good and evil. For example, Uncle Sam-bashing Boyle gets his fanny saved by the very same US ambassador whom he chides earlier on. And while Stone gives a ridiculously idyllic portrait of the marxist guerillas as gentle Tao-spouting Che Guevara's, he avoids outright idolatry by throwing light on their cruelties as well.

'Salvador' will grip you by the senses and won't let you go. Although the sadism and rhetoric are sometimes hard to digest, we are nonetheless saved from total despair by the odd pop-ups of quirky humour, like Boyle at confession...."does this mean I can still smoke a couple of joints?" And above all, its James Wood's performance that carries this film into the GREAT category. Mesmerizing with his high-pitched whine and ADD-like hyperactivity, Woods IS the archetypal Hunter S. Thompson gonzo-journalist! Belushi provides sterling support as his Sancho Panza sidekick always looking for the pain-less way out.

In a way, 'Salvador' IS the modern Don Quixote story. With his lance replaced with a Nikon, Wood's Boyle shows us the noble futility of thinking we alone are enough to save ourselves and others.

Say what you will about Oliver Stone but one thing is certain: he knows how to bring out the best in his cast. Tom Cruise couldn't act his way out of a paper bag until BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. Kevin Cosner dropped his ho-hum dead-panning and actually raised his voice in JFK--and Tommy Lee Jones and Gary Oldman gave the performances of their lives in that film. Stone made it known that Val Kilmer wasn't just another pretty face in THE DOORS. In SALVADOR, one of Stone's first films, he gave James Woods the chance to show his stuff--enough stuff to earn him an Oscar nomination.

However, this is not an easy movie to watch, in spite of Woods' brilliant job. If you can ignore the Modern Marxist 101 rhetoric, you have at the heart of this film an original, unfaltering and chilling vision of humanity run amok and evil gloating at its own success. Stone proposes that our lives really aren't our own. They are threatened, not only by the caricatures he makes out of lip-pursing military/industrial/capitalists, but also by the cruelty and savagery he senses in every human being. In one particularly chilling scene, a group of nuns are raped and executed by goons who support the anti-Marxists of El Salvador. Yes, the goons were sent on this mission by higher-ups but they DIDN'T HAVE TO DO IT. On top of that, the absolute glee on their faces as they committed this barbaric act was nothing short of demonic sadism. It and several other scenes are awe-filled and disturbing.

What saves SALVADOR from being too dark to bear are the spurts of humor. Woods and James Belushi (yes, even James Belushi does a good job) play off each other beautifully; their comical quips and situations remind you of the other side of humanity: the fun-loving, friendship that doesn't get to come out and play too often. These scenes give audiences a chance to catch their collective breath after a scene of brutality, but then... BOOM... the violence is back, and it seems even more disturbing after the light flourishes of comedy. And the gloom seems twice as dark suddennly.

I imagine that this was a difficult movie to get made (I've been reading other reviewer's comments on this matter) and I can see why major movie studios in the feel-good 1980s would be unwilling to finance this film: it's too darn-gosh political; it takes place in a creepy foreign country that isn't romantic; there's no romance at all; and worst of all there's no pop music song that can be spun off into a music video and sold to MTV! They must've thought that Oliver Stone was out of his mind. But he wasn't. And it is to our benefit that he pressed on and got it done. This is a most important film.

An awesome, engaging, powerful movie. I loved it. James Woods was absolutely wonderful. There were many other actors who also gave great performances.

I can't comment too much on this film because it seems to make people very angry. My husband watched it as well and he is originally from Ukraine (not "the Ukraine" as some folks say). I think that people need more exposure to other countries and cultures and open their hearts and minds a little (or a lot) and try to understand. I guess that's just wistful thinking. I loved the movie. It was a damn good movie. My husband also enjoyed for the same reason. I've seen it more than once. No matter what "side" you were or are on, there seems to be an element of truth there.

If the story is going to make you angry, then don't watch it! If you can keep an open mind and watch it purely for entertainment value, then watch it and enjoy it!

I might add that I really liked the DVD's extras. After watching the film first time, I watched it again with the director's commentary. I believe that there was also a documentary which I also enjoyed. Good insight into Central America.

Just having re-discovered this film on DVD almost 10 years after I saw it for the first time, it was a pleasure to see that after so many years, its quality hasn't degraded in the slightest.

James Woods has cornered the market (as far as character actors go) on SLEAZY dirt merchants, but he's also proven himself capable of going toe to toe with some of the best actors in Hollywood. Simply put, if you want James Woods, you'll have to hire James Woods.

Although the table-side speech by Boyle (Woods) is a bit of a soapboxing moment, the rest of the film is at times hilarious and terrifying to watch. If nothing else, Stone accurately captured the utter turmoil of a nation in the throes of a dictatorship.

As for the extras, the commentary by Stone is quite good, but the documentary portion renders it pointless, for the most part. The deleted scenes make it QUITE clear exactly why they were cut from the finished print, but they could have been re-inserted without causing much damage to the storyline.

One of the best films of all time, never mind the 80s. "Platoon" and "Wall Street" may represent the apex of Oliver Stone's resume, but in my book, this one doesn't suffer one bit in comparison.

I was compelled to write this review after I read the two reviews written from the Salvadorean perspective claiming that this movie was essentially complete fiction. Although, I haven't seen this movie in several years I remember it being a griping and shocking account of events that are largely forgotten (or were even noticed back then) by average Americans. I wonder if the two Salvadorean reviewers have ever met or talked with Boyle, the journalist whose experience the movie is based, or if they were ever in the same places with Boyle during that time. Moreover, one of the key events depicted in the movie actually DID HAPPEN: On December 2, 1980 four American nuns who were there giving aid and relief to the poor people of that country were brutally raped and murdered by a group of El Salvador's National Guardsmen. Like anything we view or read, Stone's movies should be seen with a critical eye. Of course his movie is not the "ultimate truth" on what happened in the 80's in El Salvador and it should not be viewed that way. Instead, it should be viewed for what it is: one man's perspective (Boyle's) of what he witnessed while he was there. How does that person's perspective or account deepen our understanding of history? What questions does it raise? Whose interests does that perspective (or other perspectives) serve? Whether this movie is an "accurate" depiction is not as important as the fact that this movie can get us thinking and talking about important issues surrounding justice, freedom, equality and the role our government overtly and covertly plays in international conflicts where those values are at stake.