Synopsis
In 1980, an American journalist covering the Salvadoran Civil War becomes entangled with both the leftist guerrilla groups and the right-wing military dictatorship while trying to rescue his girlfriend and her children.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- James WoodsRichard Boyle
- Jim BelushiDoctor Rock
- Michael MurphyAmbassador Thomas Kelly
- John SavageJohn Cassady
- Tony PlanaMajor Maximilliano Casanova
- Colby ChesterJack Morgan
- Cynthia GibbCathy Moore
- Will MacMillanColonel Bentley Hyde Sr.
- Valerie WildmanPauline Axelrod
- José Carlos RuizArchbishop Romero
Recommendations
- 90
Rolling Stone
Woods delivers one of his all-time great performances and Stone demonstrates the sheer ambition, both thematic and filmic, that would become a career theme. - 80
Time Out
The polemic may seem obvious and at times laboured, but the action sequences are brilliant, and the film does achieve a brutal, often very moving, power. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
Caustic, vivid, and without question the best major film about recent conflicts in Latin America. - 80
Empire
Stone takes gritty subject matter and hacks it into a perilous ride based on Boyle's life in Salvador. Showing the true, upsetting and harsh realities of which most of us try not to think of. Pure Oliver Stone. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
Salvador is a movie about real events as seen through the eyes of characters who have set themselves adrift from reality. That's what makes it so interesting. - 60
Variety
The tale of American photojournalist Richard Boyle’s adventures in strife-torn Central America, Salvador is as raw, difficult, compelling, unreasonable, reckless and vivid as its protagonist. - 60
CineVue
The editing, too, is rough around the edges, but it all adds to the sense of madness that pervades El Salvador – a sense that only grows the more intense the further that Boyle journeys into this Central American heart of darkness. - 50
Chicago Tribune
Wexler told his story in credible human terms. Writer-director Stone felt the need to jazz up his action with wacked-out characters who belong in a ''Saturday Night Live'' sketch.
