Under Fire [dir. Roger Spottiswoode]

While watching Under Fire, Roger Spottiswoode's film about US journalists covering the civil revolution against the regime of the dictatorial president Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua, it is hard to not compare it with Oliver Stone's Salvador, which deals with similar territory. Under Fire is the more clean-cut and old-school Hollywood of the two. The journalist characters (Nick Nolte and Joanna Cassidy, with a strong pivotal turn from Gene Hackman) are not jaded by corruption or moral cynicism. They respect their job and believe in its capacity to help good prevail. This of course brings them to a course where they set aside the objectiveness their profession demands, to support the people they see as oppressed underdogs struggling against a vicious establishment willing to use all means at its disposal to crush the rebellion.

Of course, the film does hint at the hand of the US government in propping up the Somoza government till the shocking killing of an American journalist by his soldiers led to a public outcry that reversed their stand. In one scene a native character bitingly talks about how the deaths of thousands of Nicaraguans mattered less than the death of a single American in directing the world's eyes towards the oppression their people faced every day. But I found Under Fire a little less effective as a picture of the political and moral chaos that occurs in a civil war than Salvador was; even though the latter was sometimes more scattershot, it better conveyed this aspect.

Reviews of Under Fire have also brought up comparisons with Casablanca, a film of romance in a time of strife. There is a love triangle between Hackman and Cassidy who have just separated as a couple, and Nolte, who is Hackman's best friend and in love with Cassidy. It's handled with good taste: In one beautiful ly understated scene Hackman comes across intimate pictures of his wife taken by Nolte, which obviously cause him some heartache from leftover feelings, but he takes the thing in stride, knowing that what is past will not return.

Under Fire is a fine prestige picture with good writing and fine lead performances (also worthy of mention are Jean-Louis Trintignant as a charming if chameleonic power-broker and a young Ed Harris as an American mercenary). Cinematographer John Alcott evokes a strong naturalistic style, and there are some stunning open set-pieces with Mexico standing in for Nicaragua. Jerry Goldsmith's score I am ambivalent about: it's a remarkable adventure film score, but to me it undermines the starkness of the events behind the story.