Entertainment

Cult Movie: Gripping drama Salvador shows Oliver Stone at his uncompromising best

James Woods in Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), an uncompromising journey into the horrors of the US-backed civil wars of the period in Central America
James Woods in Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), an uncompromising journey into the horrors of the US-backed civil wars of the period in Central America James Woods in Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986), an uncompromising journey into the horrors of the US-backed civil wars of the period in Central America

IT’S a long time since director Oliver Stone delivered a properly impressive movie. He’s still capable of turning in interesting films that occasionally show flashes of the old genius but generally it’s hard to shake the feeling that his golden era is firmly behind him.

For the man’s true glory period in the director’s chair you need to go back to the time when he chopped out solid gold classics like Platoon, Wall Street, Born on the fourth of July and JFK with an almost obscene regularity. Before all of those, – in fact, a mere matter of months before he unleashed Platoon on the world in 1986 – he made Salvador, a fabulous and hugely undervalued film about the US-backed chaos of civil war in El Salvador.

Harrowing, totally focussed and boasting the kind of uncompromising attitude to mainstream American politics that he would take through most of his finest work, it’s a brilliant example of Stone at his angry best. The recent Blu-ray reissue from Eureka, which presents the work in the most impressive package to date, will hopefully bring it to as wide an audience as possible.

Aside from being one of Stone’s most committed and convincing political dramas, it also boasts a remarkable, quite possibly career best, performance from James Woods for which the actor was rewarded with an Oscar nomination.

Woods was on fire round that time anyway, working with the likes of Cronenberg of Videodrome and Sergio Leone on Once Upon A Time In America, but this might just be his finest hour in that hugely fertile period. His turn as the speed-talking, down-on-his-luck, deeply unlikeable photo-journalist Richard Boyle, who is convinced by an old friend, played by James Belushi, to pick up his camera and travel over the border to document the escalating crisis in El Salvador, is both sleazy and scary.

As a damning indictment of the United States' role in the Central American crisis of the time, Salvador is powerful stuff. Stone pulls no punches in terms of showing the human cost of civil war in a poor country and as the bodies pile up the sheer bloody horror on screen is sometimes hard to stomach.

Woods masterfully allows his initially one-dimensional character to grow as the film progresses and he even develops a sense of humanity through the grim reality of the world that surrounds him that is genuinely affecting.

Stone, of course, had a long list of impressive writing credits to his name prior to this, including the likes of Scarface and Midnight Express – and, indeed, he co-wrote this as well with real life photo-journalist Boyle – but this was the first time his passion for uninhibited political drama really shone through from a director’s perspective.

Adorned with all the usual neat little extras you’d expect from a historical offering like this, including a 1986 commentary track from Stone himself, this is a powerful, visceral and occasionally shocking journey into the horrors of civil war and it comes highly recommended.