An absolutely horrible movie about a potentially great story.

Rating: 2/10 (5 July 2002)

I was worried when I saw that John Woo was doing the film about Navajo code talkers in WWII. It's a fascinating piece of war history that would make a great movie. But Woo's passion for ridiculously over-the-top action sequences make all his movies sadly humorous, but I tried to keep an open mind about this movie. Perhaps with a different subject matter, the much-acclaimed Woo could show he has real skill behind the camera. But, alas, within the first few minutes of this movie, it showed me just what it was going to be: two hours of pitifully-sappy and horribly-inaccurate stunts and effects.
This movie made Pearl Harbor--a maudlin, predictable, cookie-cutter piece of fluff--look like a masterpiece by comparison. During many of the battle scenes, as well as in a few of the cheesy dialogues, I felt as if I was watching some straight-to-cable sub-B-grade movie. What a horrible disservice to the men who fought and died in WWII.
Just so my comment isn't all negative, I do have to say I thought Christian Slater did a good job with a very formulaic and bland role (which they ALL were). And White Horse, the Navajo paired with Slater's character, was interesting as well. While hoaky, I actually bought their exchanges and found their musical "jam-sessions" almost moving.
Overall, this movie was very poorly done. I'm glad I didn't spend money to see it. For me now, John Woo and Nicholas Cage (just like John Woo and John Travolta) are a combination that can turn even the most interesting subject matter into a joke of a film. I laughed out loud in numerous parts of this movie, none of which were supposed to be funny. A few examples: ridiculously "hollywoodized" battle scenes, like a bazooka shell exploding with the force of a 500-pound bomb; poorly choreographed battle scenes; and lines like "That Navajo saved my bacon!" Really, several times I found myself wondering if someone had written the script as a spoof of action movies and then Woo mistakenly took it as a real script, it was so preposterous in some ways and childishly-predictable and simple in others.