How many war movie cliches can dance on the head of a bullet?

Rating: 4/10 (23 June 2002)

Some of the following will contain what could be considered spoilers only if you've never before seen a war movie. If you have seen a few war movies, then you've seen this one as well.
Let me say up front that I am a serious John Woo fan. I consider "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" to be two of the finest action films ever made. There is much more to him than, as many seem to think, doves, slow motion, and double-fisted gunfire. Themes of friendship, love, loyalty and duality are found throughout his work, and those are the elements that make his films so compelling. This one, sadly, is not.
Why? Because there is not a single plot thread or character development moment here that you have not seen a hundred times before. Will the racist soldier's life be saved by a Navajo soldier, forcing him to rethink his assumptions? Despite his initial reluctance, will Enders become too friendly with the code talker to be able to do his duty when the time comes? Will the guy who only wants to go home to his wife make it? If you can answer any of these questions, then you could have written this screenplay.
Another problem is that Woo's approach to action, which can work brilliantly within the confines of a shoot-em-up cop thriller, comes across as silly in the setting of a World War II battle. Grenades burst into gasoline flames, bazookas can take off the top of a hill, and a single soldier can gun down half a dozen enemies with a handgun.
The final problem is with the central concept of the plot, namely that it's barely there. The Navajo code talker program, we are told, was instrumental in the pacific theater, and was never broken. If you already know that, don't expect to learn any more. This aspect of the story could have been jettisoned, and we'd be left with more or less the same plot. We know no more about the program coming out of the film than we did going in. The screenplay is less concerned with the origins and implementation of the code talkers than with what Nicolas Cage's character thinks of the idea. And that's a shame, because there's a fascinating story to be told on this subject. Sadly, it isn't this one.