Salvador (Special Edition)

Oliver's early works are amazing. Then he becomes a story himself.....The pressures of Hollywood, Money, glamour and human weakness. I am not knocking anyone, anyone could fall victim to this. Morality Compass. Once we move our values, we are screwed. Stone could make a great picture about himself or a fictional version. Hollywood and Money. Cheers!

As a former advisor/trainer to the Salvadoran armed forces I watched the movie with mixed feelings. Filmed in Mexico it depicts El Sal as a seedy place...I assure that El Sal is a modern looking country. The violence brought back memories and showed to some extend the abuse and corruption of the Salvo armed forces. The viewer is left with some doubt as to how complicit in Salvo internal affairs was the US State Dept and military during this time period. The movie leaves off just as the US began its efforts to train the Salvo military into an effective counter-insurgency force. As an eye-opener I give it a top rating.

Favorite actor James Woods delivers in this based on true events drama. Focuses on James Woods character getting back into shooting pictures of horrible war acts in El Salvador back in the early 80s during civil war. Lots of great talent in this movie and shows some bloody and sensitive content ( hyper sensitive people advised) sad ending and no extras unfortunately. But film is so good I own two copies on Blu ray. My second copy does have extras and more

Shoddy, unpleasant but maybe worth it. Seeing the out-of-touch nuns think their suburban way-of-life would save them when faced with the evil of this world. As they say, there is evil in this world. This lesson is often learned the hard way. I will take evil more seriously now. // Either Oliver or JimB could not figure out if this is a drama or comedy.

This review concerns the condition of the so called new DVD media that this MGM release, Salvador is on, rather than the content of the movie itself. I ordered several movies at one time from Amazon a few months ago, and did not get to view them all during the return window. I did test most of them by just seeing if they would load and start to play, and even spot checked a few chapters, but did not play them clear through because I didn't have the time or desire to watch that many movies in a month. This movie was an MGM DVD, which (along with Paramount and Columbia/Sony) is a brand I've previously had relatively little difficulty with on defects, though I read in reviews that others have had difficulty. (I've experienced some DVDs from some other studios not reliably playing, but won't mention them here.) Unfortunately, when I recently tried to play the Salvador movie, it froze in several places and several parts of the DVD would not play, so it was impossible to watch the whole movie. Inspection of the DVD disk itself revealed that, even though the protective plastic over the data layer (e.g. the bottom side of the disk) was clean and clear, the data layer itself was defective. Viewed from the bottom side, about 80 percent of the data layer has the shiny and metallic look of a normal commercial DVD, except that it has a slight yellow cast when compared to some other DVDs. The problem is in the other 10-20 percent of the data layer, where some of it appears to be a dull flat gray, even having the appearance of oxidized aluminum sheet metal in places. The low rating is because a movie you pay for and can't watch obviously isn't worth what was paid for it. What is worrisome about the oxidization defect is that it could potentially occur at a later time on other DVDs. This could be a problem, since there doesn't seem to be a way to replace bad disks from some studios. (A suggestion is that studios lighten up on the idea of making backups, especially if they won't replace movies on defective media. A backup could at least salvage what is still readable on a DVD before the whole disk goes bad.) Some movies even become unavailable after a while. A case in point for a movie going off the market is the "Song of Norway" movie, which is a completely different genre. Concerning the parts of the "Salvador" movie I could see, I thought that the movies "Romero" and "Innocent Voices" were better movies about what went on in El Salvador. I could not find a way to contact MGM about defective DVDs at their web site, so this is to alert other buyers to be wary of defective disks (regardless of the studio), and to play them CLEAR THROUGH during the retailer's return window whether you want to view the movie that soon or not. This tends to make it impractical to order many DVDs at once from any seller having a relatively limited return window. Spot checking didn't uncover the defects. While I was looking into this matter, I found that the sites for some other brands of DVDs (Universal and Disney) DID have an easily accessible way to contact them about replacement of defective DVDs. I haven't discovered any defective DVDs from either of these studios yet, so I can't comment on how satisfactory their process is, but at least they appear to have a process in place that customers can find. I hope this helps potential DVD buyers. Again, this is not about the content of the movie Salvador, but is instead about defects I found in the media it was distributed on. If a solution is found and there is a way to post an update, I'll try to add an update later.

Just finished Oliver Stone's book Chasing the Light, a large part of which is about the trials, tribulations, and near-failures of the film. He also revealed a lot of background on choosing locations - ahem, challenges working with Jimmy Woods, what a good actor Jim Balluchi is, and other tidbits I completely forgot to watch for because the movie is so high octane and riveting! Not sure why anyone would ever read this review, but I recommend this film on a number of levels.

Although Oliver Stone's other movie released for 1985, "Platoon", got most of the attention in the media, "Salvador" actually deserves just as much attention and praise. "Salvador" was Oliver Stone's first film ever as director, and it's a gripping, tightly edited, and beautifully acted expose of the appalling brutality and corruption in El Salvador during the turbulent 1980 civil war. War photographer Richard Boyle(James Woods) and his best buddy Mr. Rock(James Belushi) witness the horrific executions and mindless detentions by the military government as they try to extinguish the flames of revolution. What complicates everything is that the Reagan Administration had just come into office back in the U.S., and they wholeheartedly backed the government with arms, aircraft and advisers. They dismissed the rebels as merely communists and thus unworthy of support. Against this background, Boyle falls in love with a young Salvadoran woman and desperately tries to get her out of the country by any means at his disposal. James Wood's riveting performance is by far the best of his career.

Entertaining movie, but the past years has made it less shocking that it was my first came out. Woods is his usual hyper self and Oliver Stone’s directing is always top notch

Be warned: this is strong stuff. Strictly for adult viewing only. Not only is there frequent, strong and coarse swearing from the very start and throughout, there’s also some genuinely shocking sequences of stomach churning violence. Hence the 18 certificate. James Woods is thoroughly electrifying as the lead protagonist. Salvador runs for just over two, horrifying, hours. For those of you who can stomach it, the film is must viewing. It’s also terribly tragic, tense and defiantly depressing. With no happy ending. However the English SDH subtitles were awesome. And the main menu presents a variety of viewing options. There are approximately 27 minutes of deleted and extended scenes. Plus a feature, over one hour, length making of documentary entitled “Into the Valley of Death” and a trailer. This film is definitely worth watching but don’t go expecting a fun time. It’s grim, it’s grimy, it’s brutal and it’s abhorrent. So not an easy watch then, but utterly compelling and necessary nonetheless. There’s also a dvd included with the blu ray. And a reversible cover. The only thing stopping it from getting 5 gold stars? James ‘Jim’ Belushi. Now he’s almost as repugnant as what happens in the film. Just my opinion, tho.

I had this film on video years ago it was very shocking and a fantastic set of performances richard boyle is played by James Woods and Woods is at his most manic and scared he decides to go to salvador with Dr rock played brilliantly by Jim belushi in my opinion his best performance and the underrated john savage its all about the freedom fighters in salvador fighting the salvador army and major max the dictator written by boyle and Oliver stone the film is unrelenting stone is a great master at putting his audience in the middle and makes them ask themselves why ?brilliant film can see how he ended up making jfk

I first saw this at the Edinburgh Metro and independent cinema as it was denied a national release in both the UK and USA because of pressure from the American Government. That only serves to illustrate how true and accurate the content of this movie is.Isn’t it amazing that a country dedicated to free speech goes out of its way to silence anyone who disagrees with the government version of things.Salvador is a remarkable and terrifying piece of art. There’s never been a harder hitting political thriller in the history of the moviesHence the ban.It’s never too late for the truth to come out.But. Does anybody care anymore?I certainly doThanks Oliver Stone for Salvador and thanks for having the courage to make this movie.

Great film from a great director (Oliver Stone), with a decent - if unspectacular - blu-ray transfer. Still an noticeable upgrade from the DVD version of the film. As advertised though, this is a Spanish released blu ray. Given this film is currently not available on blu ray in the UK, it's the only way to own this on a Region B playable disc. However be advised, whilst it features an English language soundtrack some characters in the film speak in Spanish (native language of El Salvador) and these scenes do not features English subtitles (and the disc does not have an English subtitle option). Understandably so, I guess, as it's a product produced for the Spanish market. I'm quite familiar with the film, so admittedly it didn't affect my viewing pleasure too much, but for others it might. Rating is for the film, not the disc, which would loose an additional star or two for the reason given. But to be fair, it's exactly as it says on the tin so to speak.

A superb movie, with a stunning opening sequence. James Woods has never been better and I think it is Oliver Stones best film as a director.Very exciting but also sad and illuminating, based on true events and the extras explain lots about who the real characters were.