Bullet Points: Windtalkers (2002)
I know you’ve all heard of the saying “kill two birds with one stone”. It’s a pretty popular one and it clearly means to achieve two goals with only one single action. It’s important to understand that because by selecting this film to review, I’m killing FIVE BIRDS WITH ONE STONE. It’s probably never been done before so consider yourself a witness to history.
Synopsis: Two U.S. Marines in World War II are assigned to protect Navajo Marines, who use their native language as an unbreakable radio cypher.
- Bird #1: It’s Native American Heritage Month here in the United States of America. A country once populated by many peoples of many different cultures, spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific. In an effort to draw attention to the many significant achievements of Native Peoples, the month of November was marked by then President George H.W. Bush as National American Indian Heritage Month. It has been celebrated each November since 1994.
- Bird #2: Veterans Day. It’s a time to celebrate the many sacrifices made by Military Veterans over the years. I, too, cherish this holiday for the many sandwiches that I receive for free. Almost seems worth those six years I spent digging sand out of my crack.
- Bird #3: John Woo. He’s been back in the news recently with his upcoming Christmas Action extravaganza Silent Night to be released this year. For action fanatics he’s never far from our minds. His body of work is second to none in the community and I would go so far as to say he belongs up on that Mount Rushmore of action filmmakers on the first f’n ballot!
- Bird #4: Nicolas Cage. He doesn’t rest much these days. As soon as one Nic Cage film leaves theaters or that front page of Netflix, it feels like there is one more to take its place. This movie is now over 20 years old and it’s definitely not among his better works, but Cage never makes any movie worse and he’s anything but boring.
- Bird #5: The gratuitous violence. Windtalkers has some things going for it that many other WW2 films don’t have. It attempts to tell a very interesting story about some folks doing some very interesting things. Yes, they are using the Navajo language as radio operators so they enemy can’t steal and decipher signals. It’s all pretty cool stuff and you won’t see many movies that add something new to the Allies vs. Axis Powers films we’ve gotten for the past 70 years. The fact that this film is directed by the man who made Heroes Shed No Tears will tell you all you need to know about the action direction. Explosions galore and bayonetting for days. One dude even got his hand chopped off with a katana.
- Still Bird #5: While the violent action and the seemingly endless ambushes make the film more exciting, it definitely feels like it’s missing something. The characters never feel fleshed out in any significant way and the relationships we do get feel a bit forced. Even Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) and Joe Enders (Cage) never have a moment in the film that I remember feeling something. Word is that Woo had a much longer version with more dramatic elements but the said “Fuck that. Give me the action”.
The Verdict: This was a first time watch for me and it just may be a last time watch as well. I appreciate the bonkers action scenes and I always* enjoy seeing Nic Cage kill 250 people in a single film but it lacked that brotherhood feeling that all good War movies MUST have. I could probably name a dozen WW2 movies off the top of my head that I enjoyed more than this but at least this one had Christian Slater being decapitated….so there’s that.
