Not about the "Windtalkers"

Rating: 4/10 (20 January 2003)

The movie advertises itself to be about Native American Navahos using their Navaho language as an unbreakable code in WWII. However, I didn't find the movie to be about that at all. There were a couple of "Windtalker" characters in the movie. But, they were just there as a plot point to give give Cage the excuse to have a mission of protecting the code... not the person, but the code. That means he can't let the "Windtalkers" fall into enemy hands at any cost. So, naturally, they immediately run the "Windtalkers" to the front lines where they run randomly around in circles while Cage follows along with a machine gun mowing down dozens of enemy soldiers at a time. And since they really want to protect the code, they do things like putting one of them in a Japanese uniform so he can walk right into the enemy camp... Of course cage goes along. Machine guns blaze, and Rambo, er rather Cage, racks up huge body counts mostly in slow motion. There is a tremendous amount of close up fighting. Lots of hand to hand combat, lots of hand gernades... and none of it seemed realistic to me. Apparently both the Japanese and US armies believed in having a few soldiers constantly yelling and running out into the open where they could be shot easily.
Did the US army really use the windtalkers on the front lines to give coordinates for artillery? Once they sent in the coordinates the shelling started almost immediately, what difference would it have made if they gave the coordinates in English? Maybe this is historically accurate, but I have a feeling the "windtalkers" were probably used more to coordinate the date of attacks, help coordinate meeting points, and probably not on the front lines fighting hand to hand.
I found the movie unrealistic, unentertaining, and unwatchable.