Eumenides_0 In the '80s Vietnam was history. Latin America was news. It's in this historical context that we must place Under Fire, amovie about the 1979 Nicaraguan revolution that overthrew President Somoza. It's a movie that is mostly forgotten but that I believe still matters today, not least because it's a well-crafted movie with a great cast.Under Fire is partly a fictionalised account of the story of Bill Stewart, an ABC News reporter gunned down by the Nicaraguan Army patrol at a road checkpoint. A cameraman filmed the execution and the footage caused a scandal back in the USA. The movie doesn't hide the irony that the life of one American journalist did more to turn public reaction against the government's support of the dictatorship than the lives of thousands of Nicaraguans. Like a Nicaraguan female doctor treating civilians says, "maybe we should have killed an American journalist 50 years ago." One can see why on its release the movie was accused, unfairly I think, of being Anti-American.The movie follows the photojournalist Russell Price (Nick Nolte), who trots around the globe, from war to war, taking pictures. We first meet him in Chad, risking his life to take photos of the rebels. With the way he puts himself in danger to get good photos we learn three things about him: he's fearless, he's a committed professional and he's been doing this a long time. It's also in Chad that the movie sets up a running theme throughout the movie: the uncomfortable comparison between journalists and mercenaries. In a darkly funny scene Price meets an old friend, Oates (Ed Harris), inside a truck full of rebels. Oates is a mercenary and thinks he's with the government troops. Price corrects him: he's in fact sitting next to rebels. Oates doesn't worry because the rebels only speak French. Oates also trots around the glob from war to war; like Price, he feeds on conflict. Neither takes sides; Oates does, of course, but only for monetary reasons; he doesn't really care about politics. And Price tries to remain impartial. It's obvious they've known each other for a long time. It's inevitable that their paths will cross in Nicaragua.In Nicaragua Price starts questioning his impartiality. "I think I finally saw one too many bodies," he says. As Price starts embracing the cause of the Sandinistas, the group opposed to Somoza's dictatorship, the movie becomes an interesting study of journalistic ethics, of information manipulation, and of the creation of myths to rouse people. To what extent is what we see reported the truth and not fabrications? How noble is it to fool people for a good cause? More than just agitprop, this movie opens up essential questions that any healthy democracy should regularly pose. Propaganda works both ways, of course, and the movie, quite pioneering, doesn't ignore the role PR companies play in whitewashing the criminal images of dictatorships.The movie is also a love triangle between Price, Alex Grazier (Gene Hackman) and Claire (Joanna Cassidy), both journalists too. Although I tend to dislike love stories in such movies because they always seem like tactics to keep people interested, as if politics weren't interesting enough, here the love relationships are quite subtle and understated, I'd even say adult. There isn't an overflow of sentimentality or an exhibition of romantic excesses or tropes. And the romance stays in the background of the political story.I can't find faults in any of the actors. Nolte is particularly enjoyable, with his gruff, rugged personality that slowly opens up to new ideas and feelings as he becomes involved with the Sandinistas. I had never seen Joanna Cassidy in a movie before, but I wonder why she isn't a better known start; she carried a lot of the movie herself. Hackman, who has a smaller role, was also solid. Harris was simultaneously funny and chilling. But of the actors in the minor roles Jean-Louis Trintignant stood out as the sensual French CIA agent, who hides his viciousness under a veneer of politeness and joie de vivre.In terms of technique, I'd place this movie on the same level as Costa-Gavras' better known Missing. Roger Spottiswoode creates some intense scenes of urban warfare and he makes palpable the atmosphere of fear and anticipation as the war leaves the countryside and approaches Managua, the capital. Particularly effective are the empty streets, punctuated by army checkpoints, as well as the unexpected, farway bullet noises in the distance, giving the impression that there's a whole lot of things going on outside the frame of the camera. Spottiswoode had the good luck of working with director of photography John Alcott (his credits include A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon and The Shining). Each scene is framed in an interesting way. As an example, in the opening sequence rebels emerge from a deceptively desolate clearing. It's a neat trick.As important as Alcott's cinematography is Jerry Goldsmith's musical score. A chameleon of film music, Goldsmith could adjust his talent to suit any style, genre or mood. In here it makes extensive use of ethnic music and guitar by Jazz player Pat Metheny. The music contributes a lot to creating an exciting, suspenseful ambient and has become more famous than the movie itself.The movie is bloody and violent, and the violence is quite realistic, unexpected and brutal. Although the movie has a streak of dark humour, it never trivialises the violence itself. According to Spottiswoode, the studio produced the movie knowing that it'd be a commercial failure. They made the movie because they believed the story was worth telling. Thought-provoking and sometimes unpleasant, I think this is an under-appreciated gem that will hold the interest of anyone willing to give it a chance.

Maxim Gubin The movie takes place in Nicaragua where Nick Nolte is searching for the angle on the story of the revolution that's taking place. Nobody really cares about the revolution in Nicaragua stateside, until he notices the face of the revolution. Anytime he sees people waving the face of the leader of the revolution, there's the militia that's suppressing it and getting it out of view instantly. Nobody except the revolutionaries really knows who or where this person is. So he goes on a quest to find him and take his picture, which has never been done.He meets a mercenary (Ed Harris) in the process who's on the militia's side and sees him kill one of the revolutionaries Nolte's befriended. This guy could've easily been the next Cy Young stateside by the way he was able to accurately throw a grenade at Ed Harris and some of his militia-men attacking them from a bell tower. Ed Harris survives the blast and snipes him back with a vengeance when it's least expected.Well, no more juicy details but basically the war shifts into the 5th gear and Nolte's in the middle of it and discovers something really profound. Eventually he captures a moment in history and changes the tide of war by his excellent work, while risking life.He should've earned a medal of honor right there and then for that, if they do that type of stuff.Anyways, this one is definitely worth checking out. I caught it on HBO at like 4 in the morning and had to stay up to finish watching it. It was just so captivating.

raktratt A version of this comparison has already been posted over at "Salvador" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091886/ Salvador is Olvier Stone's best work and James Woods' finest performance. Perhaps my only regret about this movie has to do with it not going nearly far enough in depicting the brutality of the US client regime in El Salvador. But this observation does not count, as it doesn't have anything to do with the film as presented. A critique of Salvador would do much better to note that there are very few films about the political situation in Central America, period. Persons who are interested in the subject matter might do well to compare this Stone effort with the much earlier Under Fire (1983), a film which boasts superlative performances by Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman. Under Fire is perhaps one of the most under appreciated films, not just of the 1980s, but of all time. Both Under Fire and Salvador are head and shoulders above Ken Loach's limited tale of a Nicaraguan refugee's individual trauma - Carla's Song (made much later in 1996). Both earlier films were made at the time Central America was a major obsession of the Reagan Administration (which went so far as to suggest AK-47 toting Sandinistas were about to invade the Texas border). On account of this background alone, the respective cast and crews of both films deserve the sort of praise we should usually reserve for true artists rather than Hollywood's employees.Both Salvador and the much earlier Under Fire are very close in their subject matter: portraying disinterested journalists who only after becoming aware of the gravity of the situation in which they find themselves turn unsympathetic towards clients of the American Empire. The sort of journalists which have been entirely purged from the corporate-owned "mainstream" or "embedded" press in the United States (and the EU too).Both films do an outstanding job of noting the protagonists' rivals in the form of spin doctors for the regime whether from the US State Department or the corporate media. Characters like Salvador's ANS reporter Pauline Axelrod (played by Valerie Wildman) force us to recall the perverted scribblings of James Lemoyne (New York Times), the godfather of Embedded American Journalism; his students honored in that tribute to the corporate press, Welcome to Sarajevo (1997). Call that film for what it is: the anti-Salvador.Under Fire goes much deeper than Stone's film in questioning the ethics of journalism and the sort of circumstances which compel individuals to look at the bigger picture. The depiction of the conflict between Hackman and Nolte, on both personal and professional levels, makes it a very rewarding film. Salvador's portrait of a troubled has-been photojournalist who undergoes a sort of radical shock therapy in a war zone is different, but certainly no less interesting.I have to give the decisive edge to Under Fire for drawing much more attention to the nature and breadth of the foreign support upon which the corrupt Central American dictatorships relied. Salvador has a US helicopter turn up in the middle of a battle, an ambassador portrayed as indifferent, and that's about it. Under Fire, in contrast, has excellent performances by a young Ed Harris and Jean-Louis Tritignant as pro-regime killers, roles which draw attention to the nature and morality of those embattled dictatorships.Salvador counters with a much more interesting profile of some of the members of the so-called "government" and its military. In Under Fire, we just see Anastasio Somoza depicted as an insignificant car salesman type in the background who also happens to be the latest heir to the dynasty which ruled over Nicaragua for much of the 20th century. This was a wee bit dissatisfying.The major differences between the films are technical and stylistic. Some may prefer Stone's use of tight editing and rather fanciful action sequences. I personally preferred Under Fire's determined efforts to bring out as much stark realism as possible on screen especially in the battle scenes, which are among the most authentic attempts to portray urban and guerrilla warfare in the history of cinema. No, it's not as pretty as Tom Cruise dropping bombs to the accompaniment of Kenny Loggins, and any film which reveals as much deserves special praise. One wonders if "Under Fire" or "Salvador" could be made in Hollywood today.A 9/10 for Salvador and a 9/10 for Under Fire, and again hats off to all associated with films which one can hardly imagine being made in this Orwellian or "embedded" age.

jhnstnb This is Nick Nolte at his best in a first rate romantic thriller. Set in Nicaragua but filmed in Mexico, Under Fire captures the look and feel of revolutionary Central America, easily drawing the viewer into the horror of life under the Somosa puppet regime. If you liked "Under Fire" check-out "Salvador" or "Romero" for the same gritty realism -- these are 3-movies that cause one to think and to question.