On R List of Movie Reviews
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Romero (1989)
Rate:
6
Viewed:
12/20
12/20:
People are being killed in El Salvador, and the Church tries to end the civil war, which ultimately lasted for
twelve years, by asking everybody to love God and pray for peace?
Uh, right. My answer to that is: get the fuck out of the country and never look back. The situation never got better as
El Salvador, along with Guatemala and Honduras which form the Northern Triangle, is currently one of the most dangerous
countries in the world. The United States averaged 5.0 murders per 100,000 people the past year. El Salvador? It's 61.8.
Yeah...no kidding.
So, what has the church done about the problem since the 80's? Apparently nothing because it's too busy dealing with child
abuse lawsuits and trying to mitigate the subsequent massive financial loss. It's what stayed on my mind while watching
Romero, a supremely boring, static picture about a topic that was already covered in Oliver Stone's
Salvador.
Raúl Juliá is fine; it's the kind of role I don't often see him take on. The acting from the rest is generally good,
and there's a high level of docu-realism surrounding the civil war, making for the film's strongest point. Yet the level of
violence as depicted isn't on the same level as Salvador and
The Killing Fields. Had it been so, Romero would've been more powerful.
The trouble, as it takes place in El Salvador, is I didn't understand the context or, rather, there wasn't any provided. It's
just people being killed and their freedom that's severely curtailed. The truth as to why the civil war lasted so long is the
United States funded it.
All in all, to follow the tactic that's advocated by Archbishop Óscar Romero in Romero is what gets people killed.