Here is this summer’s war movie, and thanks to the success of “Saving Private Ryan”, the movie studios are still trying to recapture that magic. Well, the magic is dead here.
“Windtalkers” refers to Navajo soldiers during World War II who manned the radios and sent the important information in their language so that the Japanese could not steal it. Adam Beach plays one of these guys named Ben Yahzee. Nicolas Cage plays Joe Enders, a Marine assigned to protect Yahzee, but also to kill him if it looks like the enemy is about to capture him. So that’s your moral dilemma. You can probably connect all the dots in this movie just knowing that.
Enders comes into the assignment off a particularly rough time. He is the only guy to survive from his troop and is injured badly. So bad, in fact, he can’t hear much out of his left ear. Which is strange because after he decides he has to get back to the war to salvage what’s left of his conscience, he suddenly seems to be able hear pretty well. That’s right – he gets help to fake his way through a hearing exam, but later I swore I noticed him being able to hear others without reading their lips. This is one of my rules – when a movie starts annoying you early on, you begin to notice plenty of flaws. Let alone that’s Cage’s brooding, nasty demeanor wears thin.
This movie is full of flaws and bad clichés. Here’s more – isn’t it a war movie rule that the guy who softly and solemnly speaks of his dear wife and then gives up his wedding ring to another guy to save for that wife has to die? And, of course, the guy with the ring has to survive? And what about this key scene – Yahzee (I keep thinking of “Yahtzee” here and want to roll the dice) infiltrates a Japanese encampment in order to steal their radio and send an important message but doesn’t even use the “windtalker” code when he does just that. How does that make sense?
In fact, the Navajo code thing takes a big back seat to the bad scriptwriting, and , of course, to the action scenes. You may not know Director John Woo, but he loves to blow things up and after a while it’s overload. As usual with these things, you can’t tell who is who, but you know the guy with the wedding band is going to make it. But here’s another clichéd thing – the action always stops long enough so a couple of the guys can have a heart felt “moment”. Yes, with the Japanese closing fast all around them, the guys get two or three minutes to connect. Please spare me and save that stuff for the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood” movie.
Thank God for the explosions though – they are the only thing worth investing your time in “Windtalkers”. What an embarrassment – I give it a “4.0” on the scale.
