Could Have Been So Much More.

Rating: Null/10 (26 June 2002)

"Windtalkers" is one of those war films that loses its focus far too easily and this impedes the greatness it should have displayed. The titled characters (Adam Beach and Roger Willie) are two Navajo Indians from the Southwest who are trained to dispatch and receive messages in their native language to communicate to soldiers in the U.S. military during World War II and keep the Japanese from knowing what is being transmitted. Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater are the two Marines assigned to protect the two code breakers. The film goes way too much for actual war and battle sequences and this makes the movie just another combat picture that fails to tell the story that it should have told. Cage is given way too much air time. He is of course the star, but the movie focuses way too much on his past experiences in combat. The Indians lack the material needed to really make a lasting impression. Christian Slater is solid as he gives perhaps his greatest performance to date, but once again he is not given near enough screen-time or background. John Woo's expertise in the action genre makes the film feel very realistic, but this is a war film that should have been more like "The Thin Red Line" instead of "Saving Private Ryan" or "Black Hawk Down". This is a good film overall, but it should have been a masterpiece. 4 stars out of 5.