Still soberingly relevant today, Salvador offers a gripping and brutally moving depiction of the turmoil in Central America, offset by pure anger as Oliver Stone unleashes a tirade against the US government and its foreign policy. It has a real drive and sense of attack in its willingness to tackle its subject matter with a head-on vividness. Stone's cynicism and candour regarding the sins and utter corruption of political journalism fuel the central thrust of this film. Stone presents some profoundly harrowing and unsettling visuals aided by his direction, the cinematography and Georges Delerue's haunting musical score. The battle sequences are tense and tightly edited, the dialogue is rippingly good, although somewhat disjointed at points and certainly drags its feet in delivering its gut punch of a message, you can forgive it due to the utterly tremendous central performance from James Woods, a tribute to his considerable dramatic skill that he manages to elicit sympathy for a uniquely obnoxious character. Salvador isn't a masterpiece, but it's a film of such ferocious power and intensity that it's impossible not to notice. I really need to check out more of Stone's filmography one of these days.

Welcome to El Salvador, one of the most dangerous and war-torn countries in the world! A boozy reporter decides to do some freelance work in the middle of a civil war, but soon finds himself biting off more then he can chew, with the constant innocents shot down and the officials unable to intervene. Unflinching in its portrayal of the evils of social instability and tyranny in this underrated Oliver Stone story!

James Woods performance is perfect as a self confessed Weasel photographer journalist. There are some shocking scenes which capture the violence of the time in Salvador. Overall a film I would recommend.

A movie that should have focussed more on the struggle of the civil war in El Salvador than James Woods character in the first 46 minutes of the film.

Man, it's an incredible movie! I know why you feel so weird after watching it. The main actor is so goot at it, that you end hating the film, cause he's such a disgusting and unpleasant character, which has no personality at all and will always find a way to take advantages upon others. Even when he seems sad, he's just trying to convince others he's a poor guy. Even though, girls will fall for him somehow i cannot explain. The movie quality is great and i even forgot it was from the '80. the bruises, injuries and dead bodies looks so real with all of that very well made makeup that sometimes we wonder if they were just people acting out. Most impressive than that, they managed to mix a good humor with a terrible situation. I also gonna have to agree with you guys, that the main subject here which is the government political and power abuse over their people only served as a background over most of the movie lenght, but it won't make it shine less.

With Stone as director, you knew exactly what sort of tone to expect a dramatic take on the Salvadoran Civil War to take, but even so you might be surprised at how bluntly he sets up bowling pins to knock down. US military figures are either clad in country club polos or throwing around allegations of "commie-lover" at any chance they get, usually providing the opportunity for Stone to level accusations of cruelty, dishonesty, or imperialism against the Reagan administration, using Woods' Richard Boyle as a mouthpiece. That's not to say he's wrong about quite a few of the statements he makes, but he's also not exactly subtle about it. Boyle is depicted as half Hunter S. Thompson, half moral crusader, with intermittent flashes of action hero; where did this boozehound screwup learn to do a combat tracheostomy? His character is inconsistent, often assessed (correctly) to be a grifter and a bum, and while he is at least compellingly acted, the film is never quite sure whether or not it's effectively about its protagonist or about the conflict in El Salvador, sprinkling in just enough scenes of which Boyle would have had no knowledge to skew the audience away from his perspective. The film is ambitious and well-intentioned, but has a clear tendency to serve as a soapbox that takes away from the more compelling elements, and all too often resorts to showing piles of bodies when the pacing and engagement otherwise lags. It's totally fair to distinguish between the art and the artist, but James Woods is a piece of shit. (2.5/5)

1001 movies to see before you die. However, this one came across as cheap and tacky. I gave it an extra half star for raising awareness about El Salvador. It was on Daily Motion.

Incredible film depicting the brutality of the 70s-80s junta regime in El Salvador and the deep American involvement in the country's civil war that lasted more than a decade. James Woods does a very good job as the journalist Richard Boyle, same goes for John Savage.

this film perfectly depicts the civil war of El Salvador. Just perfect.

An early triumph for writer-director Stone, anchored by a terrific central performance by James Woods, here playing sleazeball photo-journalist Richard Boyle, who sees professional opportunity in driving down to El Salvador to cover the Reagan-funded right-wing suppression of the people. Boyle lies and bribes his way through the chaos and violence and its counterpart, the cocktail parties and ambassador's jollies, and only really discovers his moral voice and anger when forced to escape. The grime and gonzo energy are expertly captured by cinematographer Robbie Richardson. Only George's Delerue's sentimental music seems misjudged.

I can appreciate any movie that tries to show the horrors and atrocities in a tumultuous time and place in history. Salvador definitely attempts to do that by centering on a bloody Civil War that took place in El Salvador. It just feels like the script was only half written and the rest was handled through improv or something. The scenes didn’t have a natural flow to them, and there often was no link between what happened in any two back-to-back scenes. But, more than anything, I cannot fathom why this story was being told through this main character. James Woods plays a completely detestable and weaselly photojournalist who brings nothing but his own selfish desires and emotional baggage to an already volatile moment in time. Then he also carts along an obnoxious (and utterly pointless to the plot) friend played by Jim Belushi. Watching these two men bicker incessantly as they look for alcohol and women made me feel like I was sitting through one of those awful teen road trip movies. And all their nonsense just undercuts the emotional weight of what actually happened in this region. They never give a proper full focus onto the awful historical events they are depicting until it is too late, and I had lost all interest. That’s not even mentioning the fact that this all comes dangerously close to just being a white savior movie. While I think the death and destruction that ravaged El Salvador in 1980 is a story worth telling, Salvador is most certainly not the way I think it should be told.

Good directing and screenplay by Oliver Stone

Very informative movie that uses a fictional character to tell the story of the atrocities that took place in El Salvador during the 80s (that the USA funded!!!).

Salvador is Oliver Stone's first notable directorial effort and tells the story of Richard Boyle, an American photojournalist covering the civil war in El Salvador. Stone wastes no time before he delves into the graphic horrors of the conflict and, as he would prove over the course of his long career, shows no fear in taking sides. James Woods is electric as the flawed but strangely moral Boyle, a man who sees the right and wrong in others but is unable to hold that mirror in front of himself. The only negative side of the film is the presence of Jim Belushi, whose drunken buffoonery as Dr Rock detracts from the impact of virtually every scene he's in. If you can overlook Stone's pedantic tendencies, Salvador is a rewarding experience.

Really good and deeply effecting.

Oliver Stone takes a political conflict and use it as the backdrop for a character study of a careless, cynical man who barely survives and uses the conflict as an excuse to continue his career and get some kicks in this film. This is largely successful during the first hour and a half of the film as James Woods is a magnetic performer and the observations made in the screenplay are funny and insightful. Then the film becomes a relatively standard political thriller and Stone's bleeding heart liberal ideology overwhelms the picture as a whole with whole screeds of dialogue sounding like long speeches that Stone had composed while particularly incensed about the state of the world. The film would have done well to stop at the ninety minute mark but because Stone keeps going he loses sight of the terrific film he could have made. Financially struggling photojournalist Richard Boyle, James Woods, finds himself out of work and unable to find employment anywhere as a result of his erratic behavior and womanizing. His girlfriend and the mother of his child leaves him and he is arrested because of unpaid fines and faults with his car. His friend Doctor Rock, Jim Belushi, pays to have him released from prison and the two head to El Salvador to cover the political conflict occurring there. Boyle reunites with his ex-girlfriend and mother of his lovechild Maria, Elpidia Carrillo, while a far-right party begins to take control. His fellow photojournalists, including the earnest John Cassady, John Savage, take risks in order to take impressive photographs but the cynical Cathy Moore, Cindy Gibb, represents the views of the American government. Boyle eventually decides that he wants to return to the United States with Maria but because of decisions made by the government he is separated from her and is arrested. My father compared the style of most of the film to that of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) but there is so much more of interest in this film because rather than being stoned all the time and unpleasant our male best friends here possess a degree of intelligence. While Boyle is a complete mess and insults everybody he meets before asking them for money or an impossible favor we can sense that he is in some ways a good journalist because he has the gall to do those things. He carries himself with the confidence of a respected journalist but has the shamelessness to go after a good image in a way that a ‘respectable' man would not. Rock is even more desperate as he does not have any of his friend's abilities and appears to live off a man already lacking in funds. Both are womanizers in some capacity and while it may be hard to believe that a man who looks and acts like Woods would attract so many women he does have a strange intensity in this film that would make desperate women flock to him. They are detached from the environment around them during this section of the film and that is the way that it should be as they are hardboiled reporters who have seen all of this before. When the film drifts into political rhetoric in it's last act it maddened me as Stone took what was a perfectly good, entertaining film with likable, realistic characters and turned it into a seminar. Woods is never less than fantastic throughout the film but it is painful to watch him have to move through the big speeches that Stone has written for him and make them sound natural. I would have preferred to have seen Boyle abandon his girlfriend and return to the United States with Rock still penniless and looking for action somewhere else. The end of this film resembles that of Missing (1982) which was a perfectly fine film but it was a completely serious drama about the relationship dynamic between two people with opposing political views. This film does not suit that sort of ending and I so wanted the film to not fall into the traps that other Stone films have. Despite it's flaws the film is still worth watching for it's great first three quarters and the brilliant central performance.

We do not learn about this period in time — the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1991) — enough in school. This film permits the viewer to see both the FLM (Left-Wing) and Right-Wing sides of the conflict in grisly fashion. The mass grave scene is nauseating. The cavalry charge is beautifully done. James Woods and Jim Belushi have an entertaining friendship whose banter alone is worth the viewing. I'd say this is a must-watch, but not for the faint of heart.

Is it just me, or does this film drag on.. Not to mention it's quite confusing.

Stone opts for a script less political and more concerned with thrills.

La Guerra Civil de El Salvador y el asesinato del Cardenal Romero fueron una buena coartada para el debut de Oliver Stone dirigiendo peliculas de denuncia. Un potable James Woods en el papel de un periodista ubicado en el peor lugar y peor momento.