Too much wind

Rating: 5/10 (4 February 2016)

The premise behind this film is a worthy one. It purports to tell the story of the Navajo code talkers who served with the U.S. Marines in WW2. Unfortunately, what ended up on the screen does not do justice to those men on a number of levels.
Nicholas Cage plays veteran sergeant, Joe Enders, who is recovering from serious wounds suffered in an earlier battle. He and Sgt. Ox Henderson, played by Christian Slater, are charged with providing protection during the battle of Saipan for two Navajo code talkers: Ben Yazhee (Adam Beach) and Charlie Whitehorse (Roger Willie).
Navajos were recruited by the marines to transmit messages in their language, which the Japanese could not translate. This movie maintains that bodyguards were assigned to protect the code at all costs, even if it meant killing the code talkers to stop them falling into Japanese hands.
This responsibility weighs heavily on Enders and he determines to keep emotional distance between Yazhee and himself. Nevertheless, the bond that grows between the two men provides the central story.
The movie does explain the background of the code talkers; the opening of the film features spectacular shots of Monument Valley in Utah, part of the Navajo's homeland.
However, the movie exhibits childish notions of combat and military life that one would have thought were well in Hollywood's past. It is as though the director, John Woo, purposely avoided viewing documentary footage of the Pacific War so as not to spoil his concept of the way it was.
Towards the end of the actual battle of Saipan, the Japanese launched a massive banzai against the American forces. Woo's whole movie is like that banzai charge.
U.S. Marines and Japanese soldiers charge up and down hill with the abandon of children on a vacant lot. Men are mowed down in swathes while real amputees are employed as gory casualties, however the whole thing remains unconvincing. That real-life last banzai by the Japanese isn't even featured in the film (it fell mainly on U.S. Army units), but in a movie such as this, it would hardly have stood out from the rest of the frenetic action.
Modern day audiences probably have little knowledge of the Saipan campaign, so quibbles of a historical nature do not indicate the root cause of the film's failure. This has more to do with scenes that utterly destroy its credibility. When Enders has Yazhee dress as a Japanese soldier so they can infiltrate the enemy position, it's about as believable as this sort of thing ever was in Saturday afternoon serials and B westerns.
Coinciding with the movie's release, President Bush paid homage to the surviving Navajo veterans in a ceremony at the White House. Cast members and crew from the film were in attendance. The sentiment was right – pity about the movie.