Salvador (t)

3 stars
Vomit Scenes: 0
Vomit-inducing scenes: 2; amateur tracheotomy and drooling out a bloody tooth after a rifle butt to the face
Good for women: Certainly not. It's an Oliver Stone movie, so they are passive, weak, and defined entirely by their sexuality. Even the nuns.

This movie was like a better, Central American version of The Last King of Scotland. You have naive whitey descending upon a civil-war stricken nation of brown people who ends up shocked--shocked!--that he will not be in control of the situation solely due to said whiteness. But like I said, it is better. Naive whitey, played by James Woods, is not nearly as unbelievably ignorant as Mr. Tumnus. (There is actually another naive whitey role, filled by James Belushi, but for obvious reasons both I and the movie chose to forget his existence as soon as possible.) The movie also helped me to understand both the logistics of Reagan's anti-communist Central American policy, and what it would be like to live within the parameters of it. All for the good. Oliver Stone's politics also become apparent pretty early on. They are best realized with a scene at the leftist rebel camp, where the men, women, and children are portrayed as idealistic humanists (which is, I imagine, a simplification). They are worst realized with a truly squirm-inducing speech by James Woods about America's belief in decency and truth and blah blah blah.

The movie is well done and doubtless quite important both for its time and now, but watching it made me realize that Oliver Stone is my latest candidate for director I'd wipe off the face of the planet. I just can't connect to any of his movies. I like Platoon and Wall Street, but not in an intense, I'd like to own them kind of way. Maybe he's my Woody Allen? I do still have a vaguely disturbing crush on skeezy James Woods, however.