A completely generic war movie, except for that code thing.

Rating: Null/10 (17 June 2002)

I went to see this movie primarily to hear about the Navajo code. What I got was an entirely generic, post-Private Ryan war movie that just happened to have some Navajo in it.
Think of every movie cliche you know - it's in here. Burned out hero, tortured by past missions when he sent men to their deaths, who just wants to be a good soldier? Who of course has won a bunch of medals of honor but keeps throwing them away because he's not in it for the medals. Obnoxious redneck who has an instant hate for the minority in the group, only to end up having his life saved by said minority. Naive hick who excitedly talks about what he'll do when he goes home, only to die pointlessly. Scared naive hick who's afraid he's going to die, and does so, bravely. "Bad guy" who we hope turns noble in the end (and does). And on and on. Oh, and I say "post private Ryan" above because I think there's some rule now that you have to start with some incredibly violent war scenes to get people in the mood. Only these scenes looked more like something out of a horror movie nightmare, with plenty of blood, screaming, and body parts. Maybe that's what the director was intending, but I just found it ridiculous.
The only thing unique about this movie is the code, which never really does much other than to establish "Ok, this member of a minority, who has never seen combat before, is the only person who can use the radio." They don't even keep the continuity straight. After establishing very earlier that the Japanese know about the code and want to capture a Navajo alive, we get a scene of Japanese radio men intercepting Navajo transmissions and having no clue about why it's not English.