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.