Under Fire (Movie Review)

"Under Fire", c1983 ; Rated R ; U.S. (English) ; 128 min. ; Directed by Roger Spottiswoode; written by Ron Shelton ; Tale of espionage and civil war, told via photo-journalists, set in Nicaragua, 1979. Overall, very well done, and not carried entirely by Nolte, as some Nolte films are.

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This is perhaps the least known of the early 1980’s major motion pictures highlighting journalists amidst military conflict. In some respects it is closer to Peter Weir’s “The Year of Living Dangerously”, than the other projects. While it lacks the edge of Oliver Stone’s “Salvador”, and the heart-wrenching depiction of suffering in Roland Joffe’s “The Killing Fields”, it does have a certain believability, and is reasonably well done in most every respect. In terms of writing, directing, filming and acting, the movie does not disappoint, but in terms of historical accuracy, it most certainly does. It also has an excellent score by Jerry Goldsmith (yes, filmed before every movie had a different rock or rap song blasting behind every scene, for no apparent reason), which was nominated for both a Golden Globe and Academy Award. The original cut of this film was rumored to be nearly 11 minutes longer than the theatrical release. Sadly, since this film faired only mediocre box-office sales, no attempt was made to include deleted scenes on the DVD edition; what is now seen at home, is exactly what was seen in the theatre.

For a serious political drama, one might not expect much from a script by Ron Shelton (“White Men Can’t Jump”, “Bad Boys II”, etc.), and direction from Roger Spottiswoode (“Tomorrow Never Dies”, “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot!”). The film defies expectations, with Shelton’s best writing to date, and it is arguably Spottiswoode’s best-done project. The film is well-edited, and there aren’t any mediocre performances from the actors.

Key players are Russell Price, an award-winning photojournalist (Nick Nolte), Claire Stryder, a radio correspondent (Joanna Cassidy), and Alex Grazier (Gene Hackman), a career newsman from “Time Magazine”, staged to become the next major network anchor. The picture opens when the three meet up again in Chad, Africa. Following Price’s “Time Magazine” cover-photo on the military conflict there, he follows Claire to Nicaragua, perhaps due to, as Alex explains, “I have heard it is a neat little war…”.

None of the parties involved are experts on Central America, and they do not pretend to be, but since it is where the action is, as correspondents, it is their next “home“. Before Nicaragua, Price was a self-proclaimed objective observer. Even upon his eventual arrest in Managua, he tells a priest incarcerated with him that, “..I don’t take sides, I take pictures...”. Price seems dumbfounded at the priest’s advice (“Go home.”), as his goal is to photograph Nicaraguan guerilla-leader Rafael - who has never been photographed, and is often rumored by Somoza (Rene Enriquez: in a strange casting twist, Anastazio Somoza is played by Nicaraguan character-actor Enriquez, who is related to newspaper journalists who “disappeared” under the Samoza reign) and the local media, to be dead.

Price ignores the priest’s advice, and eventually ends up between Oates, an amoral American mercenary (Ed Harris), a well-connected French businessman turned CIA-OP (Jean-Louis Trintignant), and the Sandinista followers of guerilla-leader Rafael (Jorge Zepeda). After an initial search for the illusive “Rafael” leads Price and Claire to a small group of rebels, and following a confrontation which eventually leads to an assassination, Price realizes that, perhaps for the first time in his professional life, he did not photographically shoot the action nor the aftermath; he needs someone else to point this out to him, and only then does he realize what was in his hand, instead of one of his Nikons.

Price eventually stops short of “just taking pictures“. After some soul-searching on an act which would mean the end of his career, should anyone in the investigative field learn of it, he commits the journalistic sin-of-sins. He also learns, in the most unpleasant of ways, that his unpublished images have been hijacked, and used for alternative purposes. Both his acts and those around Price result, ultimately, in point-blank murder, which plays a key role in the political stability of the country (this scene is based on the assassination of newsman Bill Stewart, by Somoza’s military personnel, which was captured on video). The film closes with worldwide coverage of the this murder, and the flight of Somoza. At a make-shift hospital, a Nicaraguan nurse tells Claire maybe this last act was something someone should have done 50 years ago, and it is hard to argue the point, least for Claire.

While this film tells a story, it is clearly more one of photojournalism which happens to take place in Nicaragua, than a story of Nicaragua, which happens to be told through the eyes (or lens) of a photojournalist. It would not be possible to tell any such story, in any decent fashion, in 2 hours. The reality of this forces the script to utilize “composite characters”. Hence, “Rafael” enters the picture. The problem is, there was no Rafael in Sandinista history. It would be rather amazing if anyone learned much about Nicaraguan history from this movie (I suspect it was shot in Mexico, not Leon), nonetheless, it is rather well done, and is one of the few major motion pictures made about Nicaragua, period.