Review: Violence blows away ‘Windtalkers’ story

Geoff Carter

Friday, June 14, 2002 | 8:44 a.m.

'Windtalkers'

Grade: * 1/2

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Christian Slater, Noah Emmerich and Peter Stormare.

Screenplay: Joe Batteer and John Rice.

Director: John Woo.

Rated: R for pervasive graphic war violence, and for language.

Running time: 133 minutes.

Movie times: http://www.vegas.com/movies/

Director John Woo makes carnage fun. The best of his American films ("Face/ Off") and his Hong Kong films ("Hard Boiled," "A Better Tomorrow," "The Killer" -- he was better on the other side of the big pond) are similar to music, with bullets for drums, acrobatics for vocals and violent action for melody. It's like singing along with an AC/DC song on the radio; you know you shouldn't but, man, does it ever feel good.

Lately, however, Woo seems to have lost the tune. His sequel to Brian De Palma's "Mission: Impossible" was thin, and "Windtalkers," his first out-and-out war movie (the others just seemed like wars) is bloody and emotionless. There's little setup, little meat and no payoff to "Windtalkers," and it's heartbreaking. What happened to the John Woo we used to know, who killed thousands yet sent us out of theaters feeling strangely empowered?

"Windtalkers" doesn't even come close to fulfilling the promise of the true-life heroism it chronicles -- that of the Najavo "code talkers," who radioed vital information during World War II. Their efforts were based in the Najavo language, which the Japanese couldn't begin to figure out; the code was never broken.

But unlike Michael Apted's recent "Enigma," which celebrated what difference a little brain power could make during wartime, "Windtalkers" has its code talkers sneaking into enemy territory and gutting their enemies with hunting knives, periodically invoking the spirits to remind the audience that the movie is about Navajos.

You can hardly blame the Navajos for being angry; Woo all but reduces them to caricatures in his rush to play up Nicolas Cage, who is himself playing a caricature. Cage's Enders, a deeply haunted soldier and lapsed Catholic, is assigned to protect a code talker, the cheerful Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach). Enders is ordered to "protect the code at all costs," which means he's to kill Yahzee before he's captured. It also means that Cage is impenetrable and monotonously dull through most of the picture.

Some good talent is wasted around him. Beach's Yahzee is fine, as is fellow code talker Whitehorse (Roger Willie) and his protector, Ox (Christian Slater), who's the only character in the film who seems interested in the Navajo. Cage also has a love interest in a pretty nurse named Rita (Frances O'Connor), but he's too mopey to notice her or answer her letters.

Nearly devoid of human interest, "Windtalkers" concentrates instead on its combat sequences, which are overlong and needlessly graphic. Woo boldly strides through the door wedged open by "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down" but he brings nothing new to the genre, and in fact takes a bit away. "Windtalkers" beats you with its story, and unfortunately, Woo seems all too aware of this.