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Best movie of this year hands down!

Undescribable Perfection

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Compelling civil war drama by Oliver Stone with a great James Woods (as well as a great Jim Belushi). Stone's best films have always been his highly political ones, and this is no exception. Brutal, realistic portrayal of the conflict in El Salvador and America's implications. This is one to re-discover by film fans as it seems to have fallen a bit into obscurity over the years. Highly recommended: 8 stars out of 10.In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:imdb.com/list/ls070242495

As a Salvadorian, it is an offense to watch this movie. I am a big fan of Oliver Stone, but sometimes it is evident that Stone gets carried away with emotion and his political views create too much bias; especially in this film. Stone fails to capture the essence of the conflict and most important to capture the reality of the situation. He portrays and depicts the right wing as terrorists while failing to show that the left guerrillas were even worse in their actions. The left guerrillas destroyed the country and everything that was good about it. The guerrillas enrolled child soldiers and spread hatred among Salvadorians. Stone failed to show how the right wing actually tried to help a country divided by a communist movement occurring across a Latin American level. Most important, what truly is offensive is the assassination of Monseñor Romero. This is so false, since Monseñor was shot by a sniper who nobody ever saw or knew who it was. Also, to this day nobody knows who is responsible for this assassination. This is a good film in the sense of fiction, because James Woods and Belushi give out an excellent performance. But this movie does not depict the reality of the situation at all. Please do not use it as a way of educating people about the war in El Salvador, because this is nothing like it. This is pure fiction and plus it is all shot in Mexico. To be fair I enjoy the acting but the movie should have never been called "Salvador", because it has nothing to do with the real conflict. Do not be misguided or fooled by Stone's leftist tendency. I have much respect for Mr. Stone but here he just shows how he really is an advocate for the modern socialist movement.

Excellent casting, performances and storytelling by Stone. The major difficulty in watching his re-telling of the true story is the looseness with which he interprets the events and uses the creative license to fill in with completely fictional elements. This isn't a bad thing but, as with all Stone movies, he gives them the illusion of 'reality' by interspersing these fictional elements with the same weight as the real elements. Adding the text post-scripts further enhances this dichotomy and blurs the lines between the actual true story and the "true" story he is telling. James Woods does a phenomenal job of portraying a peripheral real life journalist into a main story character as written by Stone and Boyle. This movie is very entertaining, makes you think and should encourage those who are unfamiliar with the events of this time period and area to actually read up on the scholarly accounts of these events.

This is considered to be Oliver Stone's best film but I disagree , PLATOON is the best film helmed by Stone but SALVADOR is probably a fair way behind it . Unlike PLATOON which was a heartfelt movie mirroring the director's own experiences in Vietnam it's slightly difficult to connect with the characters . They're cynical and hedonistic to start with but improve as people as the film continues making the movie a slightly too obvious redemption plot , not helped with some Catholic imagery James Woods plays journalist Richard Boyle . Perfect casting by Stone which got Woods his first and last Oscar nomination for Best Actor . Woods has always been superb at playing intense , manic dangerous characters and excels at playing someone who suffers from a borderline narcissistic personality disorder who continually tells the world that whilst Sydney Schanberg was picking up his Purlitzer Prize ( See THE KILLING FIELDS ) he was the last journalist out of Cambodia . It's also interesting that Boyle's main motive for going to El Salvador is that it costs a mere $50 a month to live there whilst whores and drugs are easy to come by . Of course all this changes when Boyle gets caught up in events and becomes a crusader against human rights abuses by the right wing government The one main problem can be accused off from a moral viewpoint is one of moral equivalence . Alex Cox criticised the film where Boyle sees left wing guerrillas executing captured troops and cries that one side is as bad as the other according to Cox . I can't recall Boyle saying that but my own problem with moral equivalence is at the start of the film where Boyle self righteously proclaims he broke a story about " IRA suspects getting tortured by the Brits in Belfast " Is there any connection between the Irish troubles and what goes on in central America ? To be fair to Stone he does point out the American establishment's fear of El Salvador coming under the Soviet sphere of influence . And if Stone didn't have a deserved or otherwise reputation as a Hollywood liberal would people nitpick the film so much ?One thing about Stone's direction is how restrained it is in relation to his later work . There's a directorial technique called " Intensified continuity " which in laymans terms is MTV style film making . Stone took this to new heights ( Or possibly depths depending on your view ) with JFK and NATURAL BORN KILLERS . Here however the camera work is disciplined with no OTT flourish and Stone thankfully lets the performances , plotting and dialogue carry the film which whilst an effective political drama doesn't carry the emotional wallop of PLATOON