A hand grenade of a film from one of the truly dark moments in 20th century Spanish history but Salvador goes way beyond a bio-pic. For me the finest moment in the movie was when his guard reads the letter he had written to his father and in those words he sees that his prisoner is a man of flesh and blood capable of feelings and consciousness.What the movie really is about is the inhumanity of capital punishment and how it is used as a political tool, a tool of vengeance which is something that any modern judicial system must avoid at all cost. The garrote device used in the execution is just about the most horrible thing I've ever seen. I am 100% positive that he couldn't have been breathing or alive at the end. This type of strangulation results in death in seconds. Brilliant acting all around and I completely believed every second of the story. It all seems like so long ago but it happened in my lifetime. In Spanish and Catalan. My Catalan is lousy as no one speaks it here. I learn more Catalan in a week in Barcelona than I do all year here in Valencia.On a negative note the last 20 minutes of the film dragged on way too long.

I was disappointed with this film. The first half is boring, unengaging and very poorly shot. The nervous hand-held camera and the fast editing are very irritating, and completely unnecessary. It really put me off. It might seem very cool and trendy, and you can tell the director might have shot lots of music videos and commercial spots, but it's poor storytelling. Cause it doesn't allow you to sink your heart into the film, to feel it. It might be appropriate for films like Moulin Rouge, but not for a drama like this. There's no depth in the construction of the characters, and there is nothing special about Salvador's character, there's nothing about him that makes his tragic death special save for the fact that it is horrendously brutal. We don't get to know his foibles, his weaknesses, his dreams. It's funny how the death of the protagonist of 'Dead Man Walking' -a true murderer- is far more moving and affecting than this one. And the second half is more engaging, although it has a TV movie feel to it. Leonardo Sbaraglia's character is the most interesting of them all, the only one who has some kind of evolution arc. But even the ending, which could so easily have been powerful and touching, given the extent of the tragedy, is somehow rendered bland and anticlimactic, due to the intercutting of a sentimental scene in which the youngest sister runs to the place where the execution is going to take place while we overhear in voice-over the corny words that Salvador dedicated to her the last time she saw him,and also due to poor camera-work at the moment of the execution. Again the camera can't stand still and starts going in unjustified circles in a moment where we should all be holding our breaths.

I've seen this film today, and although I wouldn't say it's great film wise, I think it's important for people to know about recent history, especially Spaniards. I'm totally against death penalty, and this film has only reassured me in the matter. But I must say the film is somehow partial, as Salvador was in fact a bank robber, no matter what he used the money for. The acting is quite impressive. I must confess I wasn't too convinced about Daniel playing Salvador, as he's German, but he's great. Tristán Ulloa is also very good, and he speaks really good Catalán, sounding native although he's actually Galician (north west Spain). And finally Leonardo Sbaraglia plays an impressive policeman. Incredibly, you forget he's an Argentinian sex symbol and does a really good Spanish accent.Also, I may be a bit impartial myself, since I know the sister of one of Salvador friends in the film and about the family suffer...

By watching Salvador you can move less than thirty years back and discover or remember, depending on your age, Spain during the latest days of Franco's regime. Those were times where things were changing, but to some others of them it had to take longer.Salvador Puig Antich will be forever remembered as the last person to be executed in Spain. In the movie, the anarchist Puig Antich is played by the German actor Daniel Brühl. The fact that his mother is Spanish allows him to act speaking in both Spanish and Catalan. Nonetheless, one of the greatest achievements of the film is that it shows how both languages are used in Catalonia. Daniel Brühl's performance is flawless, you could sense his fears, passions,...The rest of the cast, including Leonardo Sbaraglia or Leonor Watling among many others, adds up quality to the film."Salvador" is a great movie. 9 / 10.