Big, Noisy War Movie.

Rating: 2/10 (8 October 2009)

It's big, splashy, flamboyant, and predictable, full of zooming and banging CGIs, laden with sentiment. John Woo, master of the guns-in-both-hands shoot out goes to war.
Nicholas Cage is a Marine in World War II. He's assigned to keep an eye on Adam Beach, a Navaho Indian, who radios information to the rear using the language of the Dine to baffle the Japanese. The code he uses is worth more than Beach's life, so Cage's mission to to protect him as much as possible and to kill him if he is in danger of falling into Japanese hands.
I don't want to go on too long about the plot because much of it is already familiar to anyone who's seen more than two or three recent movies about the war. Cage is up to his usual professional standards. Beach is likable, has a dazzling smile, and seems shy in front of the camera.
Woo is a commercial hack, though. There is no artistry in him, only journeyman-level craftsmanship. The movie is filled with violence of every sort except sexual. Well, I'll give an example of what I mean.
The Marines are advancing along the front lines when they start being hit by our own artillery shells. Cage and Beach manage to get hold of a radio set, call back, and have the shelling stopped. Then they ask that the target be shifted to a Japanese position. No sooner is the request made than Woo shows Marine howitzers banging out their shells. Quick cut to Japanese positions. They immediately blow up in showers of debris and gore.
Compare this, if you will, with a similar scene in Terence Malick's failed but sensitive "The Thin Red Line." A Japanese bunker on a hilltop half a mile away. The men call for some artillery. Long, silent pause. The men wait tensely. Then there is the slow, hushed whine of shells passing overhead, followed by several explosions of dirt on the still-distant crest. That's it. No close ups. No huge fireballs. No ear-shattering howitzers. And the passage of real time. Malick's movie didn't make the basket but at least the director was TRYING to do something with a little poetry.
Woo is not. Every other scene involves some sort of cliché. Most of the deaths are in slow motion. (Ho hum, since 1968.) A grenade doesn't just pop off stunningly. It releases still another outsized fireball. It's the kind of grenade that, all by itself, can blow apart a building, destroy a tank, demolish New York City. The weapons rarely need reloading. (Reloading takes time and slows down the action.) Cage fires a Thompson submachine gun one handed, holding it like a pistol. If Cage had had TWO Thompsons, Woo would surely have had him firing one in each hand at hip level, just like John Travolta. There is the Texas redneck who beats up Indians cause they look like Japs to him. He changes his mind in the obbligato.
Is a sympathetic Marine ever forced to kill one of his Navaho buddies in order to keep the code from the enemy? Are you kidding?
Ya-ta-hay, natani. There's undoubtedly a compelling story of you Navaho Windtalkers out there somewhere, though I doubt that you were ever forced to hang your naked behinds out on the line as members of a rifle squad. That movie about your efforts has yet to be made.