As Good As It Gets

A Masterpiece!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

American war film "Under Fire" can be read in many ways as it boasts of myriad feelings.Many cinema admirers might be tempted to call it a love story which happened during troubled times.However,this should not be construed as a comparison to classic film "Casablanca" which is still considered as the greatest love story filmed during times of war.By dint of a fresh air of genuineness,acclaimed action cinema director Roger Spottiswoode gives us a near perfect authentic version of what happened in Nicaragua in 1979 when Somoza was forced to flee to USA. Although this film has been shot in neighboring Mexico,honest depiction of Latin American topography and judicious choice of local actors are some of the elements which would make viewers feel as if this film has been shot on location in Nicaragua.Tough lives of journalists who report about war is shown through good performances by all leading actors such as Nick Nolte,Gene Hackman,Joanna Cassidy.Some screen space is also reserved for Ed Harris and veteran French acting genius Jean Louis Trintignant who play diabolically impish villains.At a time when controversial,exploitative war films such as "Black Hawk Dawn","In the valley of Elah" and "The Hurt Locker" are getting critical as well as commercial acclaim, one wonders which breed of true cinema admirers would ever bother to find out more about good war films such as "Under Fire" made in a not so distant past.

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.

You can read good plot summaries from the other commentators on "Under Fire". Without rehashing the story line once again, I simply want to add that I'm really glad to have watched "Under Fire" three times because it: * patiently and honestly portrays how revolutions typically evolve into open violence.* has an unusually intelligent script and story line.* has an exceptionally talented set of actors and actresses who consistently give us excellent portraits of the major characters.We are told how a fictional set of journalists and mercenaries join on both sides of the civil war in Nicaragua in the late 1970's, when the corrupt Somoza regime was overthrown by left-wing revolutionaries. I was always convinced, and certainly never bored, in seeing what they did and in learning about their motivations.I was especially impressed with the sights and sounds of battle. This was not your typical Hollywood "boom-boom" flick with all the sound systems turned up. A retired army veteran who survived combat in Vietnam told me that the battle scenes in "Under Fire" were most convincing. The shots and explosions were not at all deafening, and he would realize that his life was in danger only when he would suddenly hear the muted crackling of semi-automatic weapons and whistling of bullets, and then see people starting to drop...just as in the film.At the end, we learn only gradually that victory is in sight for the revolutionaries. Little by little the government troops fade away. Then Somoza gets onto his airplane and flees into exile. There's no huge swelling of inspirational music. People gradually come out onto the streets to resume their lives, and they watch a little victory parade by the revolutionaries. This is how it really happens....a most convincing portrait.Some may argue that this story is hopelessly dated. The leftists are gone, they tell us, and we are at "the end of history".Really? Just wait and see what happens in Nepal, where the Maoist Liberation Front is more than holding its own against the dictatorial monarchy there. These are Marxists, not Moslem fanatics. We might not have yet seen the last of the old-fashioned leftists.Stay tuned!!

There's an "Under Fire" spoiler here --Blaine3 compares Under Fire somewhat unfavorably with Oliver Stone's Salvador because Under Fire is fiction and Salvador is based on a real reporter's experience. I hope that doesn't deter you from renting this one, or lead you to think that Under Fire is excessively unrealistic or melodramatic. One of the climactic events in Under Fire, the murder of a top American reporter, was based on the murder in 1979 of ABC News correspondent Bill Stewart, who was shot to death in Managua, Nicaragua, by a member of President Anastasio Somoza's national guard. The whole event was caught on videotape by other American reporters and aired in the U.S.In any event, Stone is quite well known for shading and bending historical facts in the interest of telling a good story from his point of view. In that sense, I doubt Salvador is any more "real" than Under Fire.One of the things I appreciate most about Under Fire is that it created a great role, that of a glamorous yet competent professional woman, a mother, working in a dangerous place, and gave it to an actress over the age of 35 (much rarer 22 years ago than it is now). Joanna Cassidy did a great job with it.