The filmmakers are successful in unfolding a specific moment in history when the Sandanistas overthrew the Somoza government in Nicaragua in 1979. But the film is slow paced and complicated by an unnecessarily drawn out romantic intrigue.
Gene Hackman, Nick Nolte, and Joanna Cassidy are all good in their respective roles in journalism as a television broadcaster, a photographer, and a radio journalist. But the love triangle clouds the good work done in recreating the overthrow of Somoza.
The film was shot in a gritty, realistic style, enhanced by the still photographs taken by Nolte's character Russell. Indeed, the photographer is coerced into forging a photograph that, when published, gives the impression that the leader of the rebels is still alive, when in fact Russell photographed a dead man.
Two other essential characters are the nefarious fixer played named Marcel Jazzy, who strives to keep Somoza in power, and Ed Harris's character of Oates, a CIA mercenary, who is instrumental in counter-revolutionary tactics.
While the film closes on a stirring parade of the victorious rebels, the final, memorable note is the curious presence of Oates on the scene, who vows to show up in Thailand as his next stop in covert ops.
This was one of the finest films of the 1980s to expose the interference of the American government in Latin American affairs, and the meddling would continue later in the decade with the Iran-Contra affair, with illegal government actions that superseded Watergate in terms of felonious actions.
Gene Hackman, Nick Nolte, and Joanna Cassidy are all good in their respective roles in journalism as a television broadcaster, a photographer, and a radio journalist. But the love triangle clouds the good work done in recreating the overthrow of Somoza.
The film was shot in a gritty, realistic style, enhanced by the still photographs taken by Nolte's character Russell. Indeed, the photographer is coerced into forging a photograph that, when published, gives the impression that the leader of the rebels is still alive, when in fact Russell photographed a dead man.
Two other essential characters are the nefarious fixer played named Marcel Jazzy, who strives to keep Somoza in power, and Ed Harris's character of Oates, a CIA mercenary, who is instrumental in counter-revolutionary tactics.
While the film closes on a stirring parade of the victorious rebels, the final, memorable note is the curious presence of Oates on the scene, who vows to show up in Thailand as his next stop in covert ops.
This was one of the finest films of the 1980s to expose the interference of the American government in Latin American affairs, and the meddling would continue later in the decade with the Iran-Contra affair, with illegal government actions that superseded Watergate in terms of felonious actions.