|
| • Advanced Search • Help |
Windtalkers | Year: 2002 Classification: Drama Directed: - John Woo Actors/Actresses: - Adam Beach - Nicolas Cage Just another war film. Windtalkers is the latest (and probably the last) in a long line of seemingly never-ending war films. It all began with Enemy at the Gates and since then, we've had Pearl Harbor, Uprising (yeah, it's TV, but it counts), Black Hawk Down, Hart's War, We Were Soldiers, and now Windtalkers, a John Woo war film that is, unsurprisingly, graphically violent and combat-oriented. The movie itself claims to tell the story of the Windtalkers, Navajo codetalkers who were vital to the U.S. military in the South Pacific during the second world war. Adam Beach plays one such codetalkers and Nicolas Cage is his bodyguard assigned to protect the code "at all costs." If you go into the film expecting an in-depth look at these codetalkers, you're going to be pretty disappointed. The actual film plays more like a series of deadly situations that a squad faces, which serve pretty much as excuses for John Woo to show his action prowess. The battle scenes, the film's true selling point, are mostly effective for what they are, though there are a few clunkers. The massive-scale fight for Saipan is impressive and quite a tense, lengthy sequence. It's probably the most epic modern infantry combat scene featured on film since the D-Day opening to Saving Private Ryan. A skirmish in a Japanese village definitely features John Woo's signature kinetic touch, and it's probably the movie's most exciting action sequence. Unfortunately, not all these moments work. The battle on the mountain, for instance, is hard to swallow. At one point in this segment, four U.S. marines manage to kill around fifty Japanese soldiers, as would be my rough estimate. Hell, there's even a scene where Nicolas Cage, lying on the ground, whips out his colt .45, and without properly aiming, fires four shots in quick succession and takes down four enemy soldiers charging down a hill! Aside from all the battle scenes (five in all, if you count the massacre in the opening), there isn't much else worth mentioning. The story is played out in a routine, predictable fashion and some of the characters (whether it's the gung-ho Racist, the scared Greek, or the Guy Who's Afraid His Wife is Cheating on Him) are mostly one-note and stereotypical. I didn't learn much about Navajo Windtalkers, and what codetalking was featured could have just as easily been delivered in plain English without any effect on the battle. To be fair, though, the friendships developed between the codetalkers and their bodyguards is palpable and even slightly touching at times (bolstered by the decent performances from the four leads: Cage, Beach, Willie, and surprisingly enough, Christian Slater, who's almost always awful in everything he's in). You're not going to learn anything new watching Windtalkers, but it's a so-so effort that war film buffs will probably want to catch just for the blistering action. It's a rather plotless, unoriginal, cliched, and occasionally very dull (when it's off the battlefield) affair that emotional, but lacking i admit, it made me cry - but what ever happened to the lady nurse who helped Joe Enders pass his hearing test in order to be able to go back to war, and was writing him all the time? the characters are static, though the Navajos are slightly more dynamic; there was little background info. too much bombs and shooting throughout, and i especially did not like the melodramatic part when Enders killed Whitehorse along with the Japs and then told Yahzee,"I killed him. I threw a bomb and blew him up," acting so sarcastic, wanting to provoke and die. finally, the code language should have been featured more. ful of stereotypes! It is a well done typicall Hollywood movie but I have seen all this so many times. Everything is so predictable. The movie with such great actors as Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater doesn't have any material for them to work with. I was shocked that such inventive director as John Woo could make such lame movie. Not recommended. Buy Windtalkers at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Windtalkers Search with the Priority Search Engine on Windtalkers This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
|
