Review – Salvador

Yes boys and girls, once upon a time this tiny Central American country was considered so important that they made a movie about it. Now I guess we’re so used to tyrannical dictatorships propped up by American cash that we don’t think twice about such a thing. But back in the Reagan 80s Watergate was still fresh enough that corruption was scandalous and journalists were still the heroes of movies. Or at least Oliver Stone movies. James Woods stars as a smarmy freelancer who drags buddy James Belushi into the sometimes-beautiful, sometimes-cruel, always unpredictable world of El Salvador in 1980. The story turns out to be roughly half human rights violations and half the protagonist’s personal problems, though of course the two intertwine. The show’s a bit dated, but interesting nonetheless. Mildly amusing