good action film but that is about it

Rating: Null/10 (10 July 2002)

If you want to see an action film with some fine combat scenes, Windtalkers may be for you. If you are looking for an in-depth inspection of soldiers at war and relationships amongst soldiers like in Saving Private Ryan, rent SPR or Thin Red line instead. In Windtalkers, John Woo incorporates his usual style of intense shootouts meshed with slow motion moments of calm, and it seems to follow through on a battlefield just as well as it did in a chineese kitchen (hard boiled.) The only problem I found with Woo's style is that many of the action sequences did not capture the whole battlefield but only zoomed-in portions of it. This is unfortunate- It would have been better if techniques in "Patton" and "A Bridge Too Far" were used. Nicolas Cage does a good job and once again an only slight variation of himself as a character is enough. Adam Beach and Roger Willie do a splendid job as the code-talkers. It was good to see Native Americans honored for their services in WWII. Windtalkers may not be the movie of the summer but war movie buffs should take a look. Although it does not have a deep plot about war and the men that partake in it, it does bestow native american WWII vets some of the credit they deserve.