Disappointing in comparison to other recent war moviesor any other John Woo flick for that matter.

Rating: Null/10 (13 June 2002)

Another in what seems to be a long line of WWII flicks these days (and a second one with Nicolas Cage within a year); this is war movie without the intensity of not only its contemporaries, but also every other John Woo flick. While the Native American code talkers are a new (and relatively unknown) twist, the film falls short in several ways. First of all, Cage's character is completely unlikable. There are several points in the film where you wouldn't mind seeing him killed off to focus on Adam Beach, or any of the other code talkers for that matter. This was called `Windtalkers', right? `Navajos' Beach and Roger Willie were almost the only two worth caring about. Cage is his usual deadpan self and while he does a good job, it's hard to look past him as `Nicolas Cage' and see the character he's trying to portray. Second, for a war movie, this one kind of drags. It takes a very long time for any action to happen and when it does, it's not all that spectacular. We know that under Woo's direction, there should be much more going on here. Not that this needs to be a straight action film, but if the characters are fairly dull, then maybe it's better to move things along a little quicker.
Thirdly, recent films like `Black Hawk Down', `We Were Soldiers', `Saving Private Ryan', and `Enigma' have all contributed to removing the luster that this movie might have had a couple of years ago. The story now seems cliché-ridden and really pretty unoriginal. While the Navajo side of the story needed to be told, this was unfortunate timing. Finally, the music was distracting enough to mention. The score didn't seem to fit the film and instead of complimenting the picture, it takes you out of it. Also on the subject of music, there's an incredibly silly wood flute/harmonica duet between Willie and Christian Slater. This was enough to entice the audience into audible (and out of key) groans. Another funny thing to watch for is the stock footage of battle ships used and passed off as a regular footage. There's no flashback sequence, just a sudden bit of film that appears to be 50 years older than the rest! In between that and Cage's Rambo-like ability to stand still in the middle of open fire and not get hit while others go down around him provided a few chuckles here and there throughout the theater for an otherwise unresponsive audience. Things like those are not supposed to be funny and you (and at least half of the viewing public) might actually get a little humor out of an otherwise flat film that should render you expressionless throughout its entirety. It's a shame. For something historically significant, it seems that once again the Native Americans have had another lousy retelling of what should have been a proud chapter in their history.