Windtalkers

by Bernard Dy

Article Type: Movie Review
Article Date: July 04, 2002


Woo Hoo!
Hollywood's interest in WWII continues with the new Windtalkers, an interesting film for a couple reasons. The first is that is addresses a little known aspect of the American effort in the war, and the other is that its director is John Woo, the Chinese action maven. The patriotism and racial implications of the film might worry some; does the film sacrifice truth for political correctness? Woo's presence is also point of ambivalence. Is the film's action too choreographed for belief? The final product is shaky, but the thrust of its politically correct message remembers minority veterans and is worth noting.

Nicholas Cage gets his orders

The film is fiction, but based on the true contribution of Native Americans to the Allied cause in WWII. The Japanese were able to intercept American radio transmissions and break the American codes, thus compromising useful information. Someone came up with the ingenious idea of communicating in an obscure language that would be difficult to interpret. The Navajo language answered the call. Native Americans fluent in Navajo found work as interpreters and served as "windtalkers", or code talkers.


Everybody has Secrets
The American military assigned Marine bodyguards to the code talkers, and this forms the center of the film. Nicolas Cage steps in to play Sergeant Joe Enders, the Marine responsible for the protection of code talker Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach). Christian Slater plays a Marine, Sgt. Ox Henderson, assigned to Pvt. Charles Whitehorse (real Navajo Roger Willie). The film makes much of the supposed directive that these Marine guards were told to protect the code at all costs, even if it means killing a code talker to prevent his capture by the Japanese. This proves an interesting angst vehicle for Enders and Henderson, who naturally grow close to their charges and wonder if they could do the deed.

Woo is familiar with the dynamics of a relationship between men that have dangerous secrets. Face/Off, also starring Cage, is one place where he observed them, though the two main characters in that film experience a more intimate exchange of lives. In Windtalkers, Woo seems to step back a bit to capture a larger picture, attempting to generically capture the code talker experience of WWII. For example, the Native Americans suffer from some racism, and it's noted that they look a little like the Japanese. Yahzee in fact impersonates a Japanese soldier in one of the more incredulous moments of the film. But even if there was antipathy on the part of Caucasian troops to the Native Americans, the manner in which Woo illustrates it is disappointing. Woo resorts to a cliché, the old-fashioned fistfight, and from only one dopey soldier, the same one used for comic relief throughout the film. The pain of racism is sharpest and most insidious when understated. Imagine instead if the code talkers had been the victims of almost unseen stares, perpetual exclusion from social acceptance, or at the edge of whispers behind their backs?

Impressive cinematography

War Movie 101
The script is in fact full of clichés and war movie conventions. It's almost as if the creators were making a war movie for the first time and relied on existing material for source matter. Windtalkers introduces other characters in the platoon to try to give it the team atmosphere of other films, but they're only briefly developed and add little to the picture. There's the married guy that tries to give his ring to a buddy to "send back home if something happens." There's the guy, mentioned above, that doesn't like Native Americans, but who must learn to change because his life is saved by one. There's the nurse that takes a liking to Enders despite his haunted countenance.

Cage's Enders is probably the only character in the film that isn't a total cliché. Enders suffers a painful combat experience early in the film, and Cage really does play him as a tormented soul. There is little room for happiness in this character, and I found this performance refreshing if somber, free of many Cage quirks (like the sudden angry outburst). Cage shows us a man progressively developing a death wish. When the nurse (Frances O'connor) writes to him, he initially accepts the letters but never writes back. Later he stops reading them, and his sullen, hollow eyes tell it all as he simply turns away from the mail carrier without even taking the letter.

Beach's Yahzee is on the other hand too even. Little seems to phase him and he is almost emotionless until late in the film. He's portraying the Navajo as a quiet "good guy" but Willie's Charlie Whitehorse proves more believable in the role. The Navajo are supposed to be the focus of the film, and they should play more interesting and complex roles, but Windtalkers becomes more the story of Joe Enders.

A Navajo code talker

Uh Oh, Realism Check
Woo, known for kinetic poetry rather than subtlety or plot creativity, certainly delivers action. What is strange is that Woo departs from his staples. There are no slow motion blood ballets, which is surprising, given how many action films copy techniques seen in his films. And although there are plenty of flying bodies, it's because they are being thrown from an explosion rather than defying gravity for silly things like flying kicks. Woo usually likes to throw some big shotguns into his movies, but that isn't the case here, though I thought I did see one in one scene. In some senses, the action is a little more realistic than the usual Woo film would have it. The soldiers don't take twenty bullets to kill, and there aren't any thirty minute long martial arts standoffs. It's good to see the soldiers have the appropriate WWII uniforms, helmets, and weapons. The panoramic views of the Marines storming a beach, with ships throwing out bombardment support and F6F Hellcats providing air support (if flying a bit low…), are nice to see. But there are still problems.

Enders is a little too good with the Thompson sub-machinegun. He takes down half the Japanese army with the thing. The Japanese soldiers aren't given much credit either. Marine veterans have many times expressed their respect for the tenacity of the Japanese fighters. But in Windtalkers the Japanese soldiers, while smart enough to camouflage their gun emplacements, tend to rush right into American fire, like the mindless enemies in a first-person shooter arcade game. The film does, however, represent that there was much close combat with bayonets. There's also a gunnery sergeant's (Peter Stormare) French or Swedish accent; maybe not inconceivable, but it seemed out of place in the US Marines. That's balanced somewhat by English actor Jason Isaacs (Black Hawk Down) who again does a decent job putting on an American accent.


It was all a Dream
The one inaccuracy that stings most is that the role of the code talkers is probably incorrect as the movie portrays it. The code talkers in Windtalkers speak in code several times to relay tactical information. That is, they are in the heat of an infantry battle and use code to relay enemy positions to the battleships off the coast for bombardment. Realistically, the code talkers were probably in more isolated back areas, transmitting strategic level information, such as fleet positions or strike preparation orders. Using code to relay a message that will be obsolete within an hour makes little sense.

The battle heats up on screen

Woo's way, of course, makes the code talkers more immediately heroic. It's ludicrous in retrospect, but at the same time, perhaps we can be thankful he broaches the subject. I'd first heard of the code talkers courtesy of an X-Files episode, but Windtalkers brings them to life more vividly, if unrealistically. The veteran code talkers themselves identify inaccuracies in the movie, but are happy to see some attempt at recognizing their contribution. Just as the Baa Baa Black Sheep television show was more fiction than non-fiction, yet inspired interest in many youths to eventually learn more, perhaps Windtalkers will be a precursor to better things.








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