Under Fire

A beautiful piece of new-style classical moviemaking. Everything is thought out and prepared, but it isn't explicit, it isn't labored, and it certainly isn't overcomposed.

Under Fire surrounds these performances with a vivid sense of place and becomes, somewhat surprisingly, one of the year's best films. Read full review

A thrilling film, with a head, a heart, and muscle. Read full review

Under Fire is not a gentle experience. But it offers more to think about than any other new Hollywood picture. [23 Nov 1983, p.42]

On the surface, it is just another action adventure set in a well-known theatre of revolution, with a romance to set beside its thrills. But it contains within it the seeds of a political and personal drama that questions both American policy in Latin America and the exigencies of contemporary reporting. [19 Feb 1984, p.19]

The first major film dealing with photojournalism, Under Fire expertly uses the American movies' conventions of excitement and romance to put into sharp focus tough questions of truth, ethics, politics and ultimately consciousness itself. [24 Oct 1983, p.124]

Director Roger Spottiswoode, who edited a number of Sam Peckinpah movies, succeeds brilliantly in creating the chaotic last days of Somoza's government while at the same time incisively evaluating the moral dilemma faced by war correspondents. Read full review

It's a troubling movie, and there's something old-fashioned about its mechanics as drama, but Spottiswoode forces us to look at the humanity under duress behind all those back-of-the-book war stories. That in itself is enough. [22 Oct 1983, p.D7]

This 1983 film is well-staged, well-acted and backed by a suitably nervous Jerry Goldsmith score. [25 Sep 1998, p.36]

Thesping is on the plus side, particularly Nolte in a role cut to his proportions. Director Roger Spottiswode, after a couple of earlier actioners, has great potential. Read full review

A good, rock 'em, shock 'em political thriller, done in the best imitation Costa-Gavras style by director Roger Spottiswoode. [08 Oct 1989, p.5]

The film's dramatic and thematic ends could have been served just as well, if not better, by skipping the invention and sticking to the no less gripping figures and the no less wrenching dilemmas that history actually provided. [21 Oct 1983]

Under Fire, which was written by Ron Shelton and Clayton Frohman, from a story by Mr. Frohman, means well but it is fatally confused. Read full review