Not Another WWII Movie

Windtalkers crosses a thin red line in an attempt to expose the audience to the underappreciated efforts of American soldiers and the harrows of wartime. Oh bother, I've seen this movie before--and not just once. Flashbacks new and old, good and bad flash before my eyes. With Tom Hanks as a role-model, Windtalkers does its contemporaries no justice: It kicks Ryan in the privates, and destroys any band those brothers ever had.

Joe Enders (Nicholas Cage) is the quintessential hero-soldier, killing 30 Japanese soldiers with every shot. Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), the patriotic Navajo who pals around with the old-school Private Charles Whitehorse (Roger Willie)--who welds an antler-handled scalping knife and muses upon a ceremonial Navajo flute--play their roles like Indians lost among cowboys. These two Native-American actors are what a bolo tie and "Turd Ferguson" are to Texans and Burt Reynolds. Whatever hint of talent these actors possess is lost in the ridiculous cheese and meaningless violence that is John Woo.

Woo, the film's director, is the King of Glorified Violence. With a resume sporting Mission: Impossible 2, Face/Off, and countless Hong Kong violence flicks, Windtalkers, a supposed "serious" film, merely offers up just more of the same. The idea of entrusting Woo with a historically important and underappreciated facet of American history is insulting. The score is inappropriate, the violence pathetic--all fun is lost. The movie plays like a 25-cent comic book, from violent scene 1, to explosion 1, to violent scene 2....

The audience leaves shell-shocked, revolted and grimacing in the pain of having absorbed 133 minutes of the typical brutal violence that has graced the silver screen recently. This movie capitalizes upon the recent WWII movie craze, and John Woo sloppily perpetuates this saturation.

Stick to meaningless action gore, pal.