Ok folks...spoilers

I see there has been a lot of confusion here. Which is disturbing because it is so obvious.

William Walker was a 'filibuster.' These so-call adventurers would go to another country and take it over. Walker had tried and failed in southern California iirc. He then got backing from Cornelius Vanderbilt to take over Nicaragua so that Vanderbilt could build and maintain his railroad across the isthmus. Which was the way people got to the Golden State of California. You’d take a ship to Nicaragua, board the train, cross over to the Pacific then get on a ship again. This was pre Panama Canal remember?

Well, Walker does take the country over. But then he said that Vanderbilt would have to pay taxes on the railroad. That the railroad was under the rule of Nicaragua. So the president of the US, which had previously gave validation to the Walker run Nicaragua, suddenly withdrew recognition. Then the Spanish out of Cuba, I think, went in and took the country over.

The entire point of the film, which came in the midst of the Reagan administration’s contrast and horrific meddling in Central America, was to show that history repeats itself. They did it beautifully. Showing the sham democracy is when the US meddles. This is a political film. If you watch it thinking it is a straight forward adventure flick, then you are out of luck. And if by the end of the film you still don’t get it, you should never have watched it in the first place.

"If you put butter & salt on it, it tastes like salty butter."T. Pratchett