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Salvador features James Woods at his manic best was waring tensions between different factions heat up, and everythings about to reach a tipping point where even if you’re a resident and you don’t have a cedula, your grave situation may actually lead you into one. In other to avoid that, Woods, as journalist Richard Boyle, wants to obtain one each for his girlfriend Maria and her children.
Early on, before we get to that and as we leave North America, there’s some dark sarcastic humour between Woods and Jim Belushi, as his friend and an out-of-work radio DJ Doctor Rock, but for the characters, with no women (yet), children, pets or significant others between them, they drive to El Salvador because they can have the easy life, and because if Boyle can get some great combat pictures then he can have a career again, and has the intention of meeting Major Max, a man trained by the CIA who then went over to El Salvador and mad a bad situation worse. Meanwhile, Belushi has nothing else to do, hence also why he is tagging along.
Also, Boyle – who gets drunk most of the time as he really screws up his life – tells his friend that it’s the place where “you can get a virgin to sit on your face for seven bucks”, but as soon as they arrive, the locals aren’t so friendly and *guns* are in their faces!
Salvador is set in 1980, with Ronald Reagan about to come to power. Personally, I don’t pretend to know about every last detail of the politics of that era as I was only a child at the time, but you don’t need to be heavily into politics to get into the meat of the story.
John Savage plays John Cassady, a great press photographer, capturing the darkest moments of the conflict and always in search of that one photo that wil define his career, while Cynthia Gibb, as aid worker Cathy Moore, has a scene that is impossible to forget.
In the Western world, if you bump someone off, you’re looking at serious jail time, but in a lawless world like El Salvador back then, people disappear and if they are ever seen again, they’re never alive.
Watching this again for the first time in a while, you can see when certain things are said in the script, how they reflect later onscreen, as you know the outcome, so if you’re viewing this for the first time, a second viewing is always most welcome.
Following watching this film again, I wish there was more information about Richard Boyle online, since while the film does conclude with a brief update of events following the ending, it can only go as far as the film’s release in 1986. Another 32 years have passed since then. I won’t give spoilers about the ending, obviously, but when you watch this film, I know you’ll also want to know more.
Not every last one of Woods’ words is captured in subtitles as he talks faster than any other human!
And as an aside, I love that a bomb goes off 95 minutes in, and a ‘corpse’ flinches!
The film is presented in the original theatrical widescreen ratio of 1.85:1 and, the picture is not completely perfect throughout, but it looks fantastic for its age, and most people would struggle to find too much fault with it.
The new 5.1 soundtrack doesn’t make any actual difference, though, as apart from the opening music, nothing particularly stands out, so if you were to only hear this in mono, you’d be missing out on nothing.
The extras are as follows:
- Oliver Stone at the BFI (42:13): Excerpts from a Q&A with the Guardian on January 19th 1994. It’s introduced by a man who pauses a lot and umms and aahs, making it seems as if he hasn’t prepared his intro. Beyond that, neither this nor the next extra are chaptered.
- Into the Valley of Death (62:52): A documentary about how the film came to be made and how closely it resembles real-life characters, directed by Charles Kiselyak, featuring Stone as well as Woods and Belushi, along with the real-life Richard Boyle. This is shot in 16:9, but presented within a 4:3 container, so will look windowboxed on modern TVs. If your TV has the ability to zoom in, I’d recommend that.
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (27:48): Stone says in the audio interview that the film originally lasted two-and-a-half hours. There a nine chapters for the nine scenes, and all clips are presented in 4:3. There’s certainly some interesting stuff in here, but nothing that needs to be added back in.
- US Theatrical trailer (1:59): In the original 1.85:1 theatrical ratio, this is an engaging trailer which doesn’t give spoilers.
- Audio interview (63:55): Again with Stone, and recorded in 1986, and it plays in the background as the film is shown. In this Q&A, various audience members ask questions following a screening of the film, and then the rest of the film plays out.
- Audio commentary: with Oliver Stone.
The menu is static and silent with a picture from the film, with options to play the film with its mono soundtrack or a new DTS HD MA 5.1 soundtrack, as well as with subtitles, and various extras options. Given the way this menu works, you can’t select a soundtrack choice AND subtitles, so I had to select that as the film was starting.
However, Eureka, we HAVE to talk about your chaptering… just EIGHT?!?! WHY?!! Oh, the number of times I talk about wanting one for every five minutes.
Salvador is out now on Blu-ray & DVD Dual Format Edition and Amazon Video.
|
FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
10 9 7 6 |
| OVERALL | 8.5 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 122 minutes
Year: 1986
Cat no.: EKA70309
Distributor: Eureka
Released: September 17th 2018
Chapters: 8
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, 1.0 DTS HD Master Audio
Languages: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Widescreen: 1.85:1 (35mm)
Disc Format: BD50 and DVD
Director: Oliver Stone
Producers: Gerald Green and Oliver Stone
Screenplay: Oliver Stone and Richard Boyle
Music: Georges Delerue
Cast:
Richard Boyle: James Woods
Dr Rock: Jim Belushi
Ambassador Thomas Kelly: Michael Murphy
John Cassady: John Savage
María: Elpedia Carrillo
Major Max: Tony Plana
Jack Morgan: Colby Chester
Cathy Moore: Cynthia Gibb
Col. Hyde: Will MacMillan
Pauline Axelrod: Valerie Wildman
Archbishop Romero: Jose Carlos Ruiz
Col. Julio Figueroa: Jorge Luke
Maria’s Brother: Martin Fuentes
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.