Good viewing for those who seek lots of war action.

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2006)

I like the characters Nic Cage creates and here he is Sergeant Joe Enders. As the movie begins we see him and his group fighting in WW II, seemingly with no chance to survive. As the next scene begins, we see him in a military hospital, recovering, the only man to survive that incident. He desperately wants to go back into action, even though he is still not physically well and can't hear out of a damaged left ear.
This movie depicts the use of Navaho Americans to transmit coded messages that the enemy cannot crack. Joe's assignment is with one of these new recruits, Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach, a real Native American, but not Navaho). The drama is because Joe's assignment is to protect "the code", not to protect Ben. Meaning, if it appears that Ben is to be captured and questioned, Joe's assignment becomes to kill Ben. Knowing that, he tries very hard to avoid beaconing friends with Ben, but it is unavoidable.
For my tastes there is too much raw action, shooting, explosions, etc and not enough of the human side of the story. Still, I found it a worthwhile 2 hours.
To me Peter Stormare was miscast as Gunnery Sergeant Hjelmstad. He is from Sweden and, while I generally like him as an actor ('Fargo'!) he never was believable as a tough American because he didn't sound American. Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, and Christian Slater were all good as soldiers, as well as Frances O'Connor, the nurse who wrote to Joe and hoped he would come home some day.