Overlong, over-reaching, overwrought...

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2008)

...and underwhelming, "Windtalkers" will never be more than one of John Woo's lesser films, and certainly not one of Nicholas Cage's memorable ones. The script by John Rice and Joe Batteer bites off far more than it can chew, and seems to have thrown their screen writing careers into the dumper. Perhaps we should be thankful. We're given too many characters to care about, which makes it difficult to care about any of them, even the leads; a side plot involving a Navy nurse (Frances "A.I." O'Connor) goes absolutely nowhere. Set during the Battle of Saipan in WWII, "Windtalkers" is ostensibly about the critical value of Navajo radiomen (their language was incomprehensible to the Japanese), but really turns out to be a mundane war buddy story centered on Cage's character, who has been detailed to protect one particular Navajo soldier (played with great sympathy by Adam "Flags of Our Fathers" Beach). Despite some excellent lensmanship from Jeffrey "Jacob's Ladder" Kimball, and lavish production values, it just doesn't work, at least not to the extent one expects from John "Hard-Boiled" Woo. Even his trademark slo-mo bullets'n'blood choreography seems perfunctory. Various character actors, including Peter "Fargo" Stormare, Noah "Cop Land" Emmerich, Mark "Zodiac" Ruffalo, and a resume-padding Christian "Run For the Money" Slater, do what they can with their mostly forgettable dialogue and ridiculous battle set pieces, but their efforts, along with more squibs and explosions than I've seen in a long time, are for nought. "Windtalkers" leaves its audience with only the vaguest idea of what the Navajo experience in WWII was like, and the odd impression that Cage's Sgt. Enders won the Saipan campaign almost singlehandedly. This one is for war movie geeks and John Woo fans only.