| Salvador | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Oliver Stone |
| Produced by | Oliver Stone Gerald Green |
| Written by | Oliver Stone Richard Boyle |
| Starring | James Woods Jim Belushi Michael Murphy John Savage Elpidia Carrillo Cindy Gibb |
| Music by | Georges Delerue |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Editing by | Claire Simpson |
| Distributed by | Hemdale Film Corporation |
| Release date(s) | February 28, 1986 |
| Running time | 123 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $4.5 million |
Salvador is a 1986 war drama film which tells the story of an American journalist in El Salvador covering the Salvadoran civil war. While trying to get footage, he becomes entangled with both leftist guerrillas and the right wing military. It stars James Woods, James Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage, Elpidia Carrillo, Tony Plana, Cynthia Gibb, Juan Fernandez and José Carlos Ruiz.[1]
The film was written by Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle, and was directed by Stone. Stone's portrayal is sympathetic towards the left wing peasant revolutionaries, but deplores their killing of prisoners in a crucial scene. He is strongly critical towards the U.S.-supported right wing military and the allied death squads, focusing on their assassination of four American churchwomen, including Jean Donovan. Stone's portrayal of the Catholic Church as a force for justice reflects events of the time, exemplified in the political sermon of Archbishop Óscar Romero, which is based almost word-for-word on the speech Romero made before he was assassinated by a death squad.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Actor in a Leading Role (Woods) and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen (Stone and Boyle).
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Veteran photojournalist Richard Boyle has been taking his camera to the world's trouble spots for over 20 years; while he does good work, Boyle's fondness for booze and drugs, and his colossal arrogance, have given him a reputation that's left him practically unemployable. Broke and with no immediate prospects, Boyle and his buddy Doctor Rock, an out-of-work disc jockey, head to El Salvador, where Boyle is convinced that he can scare up some lucrative freelance work amidst the nation's political turmoil. However, when Boyle and Rock witness the execution of a student by government troops just as they enter the country, it becomes clear that this war is more serious than they were expecting. Increasingly convinced that El Salvador is a disaster starting to happen, Boyle eventually decides that it's time to get out; but he has fallen in love with a woman named Maria, and he doesn't want to leave her behind.
In 1986, the film grossed a total of $1,500,000 in the United States.[2]
Salvador was popular among critics, but unsuccessful at the box office. As of July 13, 2009, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes records an average response of 91%, based on 22 reviews.
Roger Ebert, a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie three stars out of four and wrote, "The movie has an undercurrent of seriousness, and it is not happy about the chaos that we are helping to subsidize. But basically it's a character study - a portrait of a couple of burned-out free-lancers trying to keep their heads above water."[3]
Walter Goodman of The New York Times wrote an unfavorable review and described the film "As an adventure film, Salvador has plenty of speed, grit and grime" and "Taking his cinematic as well as political lead from the work of Constantin Costa-Gavras, [Stone] offers an interpretation of history, laying blame on conservative forces in the United States for abetting the horrors in El Salvador."[4]
The Region 1 Special Edition DVD was released on 5 June 2001, it includes the following bonus features:
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