"Windtalkers" comes advertised as the saga of how Navajo Indians used their language to create an unbreakable code that helped win World War II in the Pacific. That's a fascinating, little-known story and might have made a good movie. Alas, the filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches, while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage. I was reminded of " Glory, " the story of heroic African-American troops in the Civil War, which was seen through the eyes of their white commanding officer. Why does Hollywood find it impossible to trust minority groups with their own stories? The film stars Cage as an Italian-American sergeant who is so gung-ho his men look at him as if he's crazy. Maybe he is. After defending a position past the point of all reason, he survives bloody carnage, is patched up in Hawaii and returns to action in a battle to take Saipan, a key steppingstone in the Pacific war. In this battle he is assigned as the personal watchdog of Pvt. Ben Yahzee ( Adam Beach), an almost saintly Navajo.
Thursday, September 12, 2002 R, 2 hr 14 min Drama Action/Adventure Synopsis Marine Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage) is assigned to protect Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) -- a Navajo code talker, the Marines' new secret weapon. Enders' orders are to protect his code talker, but if Yahzee should fall into enemy hands, he's to protect the code at all costs. Against the backdrop of the horrific Battle of Saipan, when capture is imminent, Enders is forced to make a decision: if he can't protect his fellow Marine, can he bring himself to kill him to protect the code?
The flesh ripping, bullet spraying ballet master John Woo grew up in a gang-ridden, poverty-stricken corner of Hong Kong, a devotee of ballroom dancing and an enthusiastic Christian who saw Jesus as a fearless hero. It is this upbringing, he tells Sally Vincent, that has made him an acclaimed director of famously violent action films.
The Navajo code was the only one never broken by the Japanese, and is considered to have been key in winning the war.
Since these guns cannot be moved before airplanes arrive, a call in English would have had about the same effect. That Woo shows the Windtalkers in the heat of battle is explained, I think, because he wants to show everything in the heat of battle. The wisdom of assigning two precious code talkers to a small group of front-line soldiers in a deadly hand-to-hand fight situation seems questionable, considering there are only 400 Navajos in the Pacific theater. The Indians are seen one-dimensionally as really nice guys. The only character of any depth is Cage's Sgt. Enders, who seems to hover between shell-shock and hallucinatory flashbacks. There is a final scene between Enders and Yahzee, the Navajo, that reminded me of the male bonding in other Woo movies, in which you may have to shoot the other guy to prove how much you love him. But since the movie has labored to kill off all the supporting characters and spare only the stars, we are in the wrong kind of suspense: Instead of wondering which of these people will survive, we wonder which way the picture will jump in retailing war-movie formulas.
There is a way to make a good movie like "Windtalkers, " and that's to go the indie route. A low-budget Sundance-style picture would focus on the Navajo characters, their personalities and issues. The moment you decide to make "Windtalkers" a big-budget action movie with a major star and lots of explosions, flying bodies and stunt men, you give up any possibility that it can succeed on a human scale. The Navajo code talkers have waited a long time to have their story told. Too bad it appears here merely as a gimmick in an action picture. Roger Ebert Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Windtalkers (2002) Rated R For Pervasive Graphic War Violence, and For Language 134 minutes about 15 hours ago 1 day 3 days 4 days ago
3 wins & 4 nominations. See more awards » Edit Storyline During World War II when the Americans needed to find a secure method of communicating they devised a code using the Navajo language. So Navajos were recruited to become what they call code talkers. They would be assigned to a unit and would communicate with other units using the code so that even though the enemy could listen they couldn't understand what they were saying. And to insure that the code is protected men are assigned to protect it at all costs. One of these men is Joe Enders, a man who sustained an injury that can make him unfit for duty but he manages to avoid it and is told of his duty and that the man he is suppose to protect is Ben Yahzee. Initially there is tension but the two men learn to get along. Written by Plot Summary | Add Synopsis Taglines: America Has The Last Word. See more » Did You Know? Goofs When Sergeant Enders sits down with his food during the first time he meets the Navajo radio operators, for a brief moment a modern radar site on a mountain top comes into view.
Edit Summaries Two U. S. Marines in World War II are assigned to protect Navajo Marines, who use their native language as an unbreakable radio cypher. During World War II when the Americans needed to find a secure method of communicating they devised a code using the Navajo language. So Navajos were recruited to become what they call code talkers. They would be assigned to a unit and would communicate with other units using the code so that even though the enemy could listen they couldn't understand what they were saying. And to insure that the code is protected men are assigned to protect it at all costs. One of these men is Joe Enders, a man who sustained an injury that can make him unfit for duty but he manages to avoid it and is told of his duty and that the man he is suppose to protect is Ben Yahzee. Initially there is tension but the two men learn to get along. WWII. Joe Enders, a decorated Marine who is by-the-book to a fault, is just coming back on duty (by cheating on his medical tests).
Sgt. Ox Henderson ( Christian Slater) is paired with Pvt. Charles Whitehorse ( Roger Willie), another Indian. What the Navajos don't know is that the bodyguards have been ordered to kill them, if necessary, to keep them from falling into enemy hands. The code must be protected at all costs. This is a chapter of history not widely known, and for that reason alone the film is useful. But the director, Hong Kong action expert John Woo, has less interest in the story than in the pyrotechnics, and we get way, way, way too much footage of bloody battle scenes, intercut with thin dialogue scenes that rely on exhausted formulas. We know almost without asking, for example, that one of the white soldiers will be a racist, that another will be a by-the-books commanding officer, that there will be a plucky nurse who believes in the Cage character, and a scene in which a Navajo saves the life of the man who hates him. Henderson and Whitehorse perform duets for the harmonica and Navajo flute, a nice idea, but their characters are so sketchy it doesn't mean much.
"Ox" Anderson, much greener, is also getting the same new task: Protect the Navajo codetalkers (Ben Yahzee and Charles Whitehorse, respectively). While Enders is initially frustrated with his assignment, his respect grows as the codetalkers prove their worth in the brutal battle to take Saipan. In the close quarters and brutal fighting of the World War II Pacific Theater, the U. Intelligence services desperately seek a fool-proof encryption code, immune to the code breakers of the Japanese. The answer is soon discovered in the ancient language of the Navajo. Enlisted into the Marine Corps are several "Windtalkers" who are deployed to frontline areas in the Pacific, to use their language as an impossible-to-crack secret code. A drawback, however, is that the U. military soon puts forth a directive that the Windtalkers must never be captured alive by the enemy, so additional Marines are assigned to make certain that this directive is carried out to the letter. Synopsis It looks like we don't have a Synopsis for this title yet.