Search - Salvador (Special Edition) on DVD

Two thumbs up!

B. Berthold | Somewhere out west... | 06/09/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."