Salvador

Based on true events, Salvador follows grizzled photojournalist Richard Boyle as he attempts to document the various injustices and atrocities occurring within the title locale. Filmmaker Oliver Stone, working from a script cowritten with Boyle, delivers a gritty and often grim narrative that’s generally (and unfortunately) lacking in overtly compelling elements, as the movie’s absence of an entry point makes it increasingly difficult to work up any real interest in or sympathy for the protagonist’s exploits. This is despite an ongoing inclusion of standout (and stand-alone) sequences that fare better than one might’ve expected, and it’s clear, too, that the picture benefits substantially from Woods’ consistently engaging turn as the conflicted central character – although such positives are slowly-but-surely rendered moot by an episodic storyline that is, to a progressively problematic extent, more miss than hit. Stone’s decidedly less-than-subtle approach to the material paves the way for an often needlessly heavy-handed and sententious cinematic experience, with the movie’s underwhelming final stretch, which is capped off with hopelessly on-the-nose onscreen text, ensuring that Salvador ends on as disappointing and forgettable a note as one could envision. The end result is a well-intentioned misfire that could (and should) have been so much better, with the film’s overlong running time essentially highlighting the various deficiencies within Stone and Boyle’s shaggy screenplay.

** out of ****