Target (1985)

 

A slightly obscure family drama/Cold War espionage adventure from 1985, Target teamed up Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon as father and son. Filled with twists and turns (although the film offers diminishing returns in the plotting department) it does stand out for its unique approach to familiar material.

We first meet "Walter" played by Hackman, an apparent everyman living in Dallas who manages a lumber yard. His wayward son "Chris" is a college dropout with hopes of becoming a professional car racer. Walter's wife Donna (Gayle Hunnicut) is about to embark on a European trip with a scene suggesting their marriage might be on the rocks. 

Walter and Chris decide to spend time together fishing to mend their frayed relationship until they receive a call from the American consulate in Paris - Donna has gone missing. They catch a flight to Paris and the intrigues ensues. Here the film delivers a twist when its revealed Walter's skills go beyond managing a lumber yard, he speaks French and German and knows his way around Europe. Target is not the fish out of water story the film was leading us to believe. Much to his son's surprise "Walter: was an intelligence operative in his younger days - and that his wife's kidnapping is related to an operation that went wrong. 

From that point on the film follows Walter and Chris through France into Germany, culminating with a climax as, right, you guessed it, in East Berlin. Father and son come to trust each other and discover a a new respect, in the midst of a number of double crossings and harrowing escapes. Government officials are untrustworthy and old intelligence operatives continue to scheme. The politics of the movie land on the side of cynical, even isolationist. America is the safe space, Europeans are dangerous. 

Methodical pacing and erstwhile performances from the two leads keep things moving along. While Target never achieves the heights of Arthur Penn's previous collaboration with Hackman, Night Moves, it does serve as a respectable programmer for those who enjoy 1980s espionage thrillers.

Salvador (1986, Oliver Stone)

Any conscientious person who takes a close look at the record of American foreign policy in Central American will rightfully be filled with indignation. Administrations have treated the region as one for economic exploitation, military interventions, and boosting authoritarian governments. Despite its messiness, Oliver Stone's Salvador takes a critical look at American engagement in the region from a 1980s perspective.

During the 1980s, Central America was frequently in the headlines with the Reagan administration meddling in the region, resulting in the Iran-Contra scandal that almost derailed his presidency. Providing military and economic support to reactionary paramilitaries to prevent a wave of leftist regimes in the region, specifically in Nicaragua and El Salvador, became a central tenet of Reagan's foreign policy.

Oliver Stone's Salvador is a semi-factually based account of the Civil War in El Salvador between the FMLN and the military dictatorship. James Woods stars as globetrotting photojournalist Richard Boyle, whose work in Vietnam was documented in his book Flower of the Dragon. The film begins with Boyle's marriage crumbling due to his philandering and drug addiction. Desperate to rebuild his reputation as a journalist he heads to El Salvador with his alcoholic buddy "Doctor Rock" played by Jim Belushi.

Upon arrival, they find the country in chaos with harsh crackdowns and retributions waged by the government against the rebels. Boyle learns the United States plans to bolster the dictatorship when the incoming Reagan administration comes into power to prevent a communist domino effect in Central America, supported by Castro and the USSR. The assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a leading revolutionary voice against the government, further destabilizes the country and leads to an uprising.

Stone's documentary approach and Wood's intense performance provide a rawness. John Savage is electric as a photojournalist based on John Hoagland who was killed in El Salvador, in particular a scene when he and Boyle investigate a mass gravesite, saying "our job is to give nobility to human suffering." Meanwhile, the dramatic focus of the story has Richard trying to get his girlfriend Maria and kids out of the country. 

Unlike many Hollywood productions of this genre, Salvador takes an immersive approach. There's an on-the-ground feeling lacking in many Hollywood productions of its time. Stone took inspiration from political thrillers of the 1960s like Z and Battle for Algiers, adding a leftist American scruffiness to it. Woods and Belushi both play their characters as moral reprobates with little interest in the politics of the El Salvador until it affects them personally. The Reagan officials are grotesque yuppies, while the outgoing ambassador played by Michael Murphy symbolizes the Carter era's exhausted liberalism.

Salvador may strike some as crude and juvenile, but I would argue it remains a potent political statement of its era.  The abandonment of human rights in favor of power politics by the Reagan administration brought disruption to the region and we live with the consequences.