Windtalkers: Movie, DVD, Blu-ray disc Review (2002)

9/06/2007 Posted by Admin

Learning your history from the movies

(Originally published 2002)

At its core, the World War II movie "Windtalkers" is about Navajo codetalkers, Native American servicemen who used their language to confound the Japanese while transmitting sensitive information via radio.

It's an important, overlooked piece of history that deserves to be explored in a movie--and it still does, hopefully soon in a film that will, at the very least, have a genuine interest in the subject.

"Windtalkers" doesn't.

The film, from a script by John Rice and Joe Batteer, fails to fully realize its premise, which is overlooked in favor of those elements that tend to beef up Hollywood's bottom line--exploding landmines, fiercely staged battles, mangled bodies and assorted other disfigurements, such as Nicolas Cage's ear, which, after his character is nearly blown apart in the well-conceived opening battle, comes to look like a waxworks reject from Madame Tussaud's Museum.

Directed by Hong Kong's John Woo, whose more popular films include "Face/Off" and "Mission: Impossible II," "Windtalkers" suggests Woo's own knowledge of World War II wasn't mined from hard research, but from the movies.

Its graphic violence aside, the film is a throwback and a relic, generating rote rhythms and easy cliches without spinning a single surprise or offering a believable character.

Mirroring "Pearl Harbor," the film's dialogue, in particular, is sandbagged with corny sentiment and delivered by a handful of actors whose performances suggest they'd be better off shucking cheese at Hickory Farms than in a film whose $100 million budget apparently wasn't enough to buy a decent script.

In a bombshell, the film's premise goes like this: After surviving a horrific battle in the Solomon Islands, Cage's Sgt. Joe Enders convinces his superiors that he's fit for duty in spite of having a ruined ear and a perforated ear drum. In no time, he's dizzy on the front lines of Saipan, where his mission is to protect Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), a Navajo codetalker--or windtalker-who is crucial to the war effort.

All of this is well and good, but Woo, who is better known for his finesse with orchestrating action scenes than his ability to create a coherent story, glosses over all of it in favor of blowing things up and firing off endless rounds of ammo.

To his credit, some of the battle sequences pack a wallop, but they never end. Worse, by the time Christian Slater shows up as Ox, a grinning, harmonica-playing sergeant who makes stirring music with one of the Navajos, you can't help thinking, "When did Christian Slater get sprung out of jail? And how in hell did he learn to play that harmonica?"

It hardly matters. At that point, "Windtalkers" has already blown itself into the line of its own fire.

Grade: D+

(Also available on Blu-ray disc)