Based on true events, this film tells the World War II story of how the U.S. Marines utilized the ancient Navajo Indian language to develop a secret radio code to help defeat the enemy. The film also details how soldiers were assigned to protect the “codetalkers” at all costs so the enemy couldn’t discover the code and win the war. The film is an entertaining mix of action and drama that does suffer from director John Woo’s tendency to over do things at times and Nicholas Cage’s somewhat cloying delivery of lines. But nonetheless, I recommend the film because of the great action sequences and solidly developed drama. Also worth noting is the fact that Windtalkers is the first war film in a couple of months after the deluge of them in the first few months of the year. For that reason, audiences should be more receptive to the film and its subject than they would have if it had come out during the early 2002 time period it was originally scheduled to be released
Director John Woo is the perhaps the perfect director for the war film genre because he’s great at staging memorable action scenes. He doesn’t disappoint with his latest film. Windtalkers features some very entertaining action this side of M:I 2. From a great scene featuring a flamethrower to some purely visceral bomb dropping from above onto very busy battlefields the action is superb in this latest war epic. As for the dramatic part of the storyline, Woo unfortunately doesn’t fare as well. He tends to rush through the narrative so he can get back to directing some more exciting action scenes and the film suffers because of it. The viewer doesn’t learn as much about the codetalkers as they would have hoped which is disappointing because their story is so entertaining.
Nicholas Cage returns to the war film genre again after the wartime romance Captain Corelli’s Mandolin last year sans the dreadful Italian accent. He performs admirably most of the time in the film because he embodies his character with much heart and develops a believable bond with Adam Beach, who plays the codetalker he’s supposed to protect. A few problems do arise every so often when he’s communicating with his superiors during one of the countless and extraneous conversations he has with them. Other than the one conversation in which he’s told to “protect the code at all costs,” these conversations don’t really serve any purpose.
Overall, Windtalkers is a well-produced and acted war film that doesn’t quite better others in the genre such as Black Hawk Down and We Were Soldiers but is still a very entertaining movie.
Rating: 83
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