Windtalkers: Director's Cut (2002)

Director: John Woo

Cast: Nicholas Cage, Adam Beach, Christian Slater, Mark Ruffalo, Noah Emmerich

Country: United States / Hong Kong

Rating: R

Run Time: 153 minutes

John Woo dominated the Hong Kong film market from 1986 until 1992. After directing "the greatest action film of all time", Hard Boiled, Woo left Hong Kong and came to Hollywood to continue his film career. After directing two solid American action films, Hard Target and Broken Arrow, Woo slowly worked his way up the Hollywood totem pole. He finally hit it big when he made two huge blockbuster hits with Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2.

However, Woo's career in Hollywood seemed to end as soon as it had began. Besides working on commercials, short films, and video games, Woo would only direct two more Hollywood blockbusters. These two films, Windtalkers and Paycheck, seem to be the bane of Woo's filmography. Both films were received poorly and met with decent yet disappointing box office numbers in comparison to the whopping $500 million that Mission: Impossible 2 had raked in. As a hard core John Woo fan myself (he's my all time favorite filmmaker), these two films have been the last two of his mainstream films that I have yet to see.

"The Cage" and Adam Beach crawl through battle.

Windtalkers tells the story of a group of American soldiers fighting in Saipan, Japan in 1944 during WWII. The film's protagonist, Sergeant Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage), is given the task to defend a code talker. In order to relay code over radio and not let it be easily deciphered by the Japanese, the U.S. army chose to use Native Americans and their language to develop a new code. Enders is told he must protect Sergeant Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) and kill him if he needs to in order to prevent the Japanese from getting a hold of him and interrogating him. Enders must also struggle with an injured ear and the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that he has been afflicted with after witnessing all of his friends die in battle long ago.

Woo's Windtalkers follows a basic pattern from start to finish. The film bounces from an emotional scene set to beautiful music to an epic battle scene filled with bloody and mayhem back to an emotional scene set to beautiful music. Windtalkers repeats this formula throughout the entire film and makes for one hell of a boring viewing experience. Woo's WWII epic is easily his most cliched, unoriginal, and over bloated film to date. A viewing of Windtalkers will consistently remind the viewer of the superior Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg's WWII epic does everything that Windtalkers does not. It has an emotional story, unique and memorable characters, awe inspiring battle scenes, and a narrative flow that one can get sucked into. It also pays tribute to the soldiers who fought and died for our country in a realistic and appropriate matter and never exploits their deaths for pure entertainment. Therefore, you get both a great film and a loving tribute to the Second Great War. I think that pro-war films need to balance both of those duties.

Windtalkers, clearly a pro-war and military backed film, is neither a great film or a respectable portrayal of WWII. The characters are extremely one noted and boring to watch, the story is non-existent, and the death scenes feel monotonous and tiresome instead of emotional and affective. And while I do give the film credit for exploring the previously unexplored topic of Native American code talkers in WWII, the subject is hardly given justice. Even though Windtalkers is well shot, beautifully scored, and immensely epic in scope, everything within the film's narrative feels hollow.

The classic John Woo "Mexican Stand-Off"

Before I get into a discussion of Woo's incredible action scenes, I must discuss Nicolas Cage's character and how frustrated I was with his character's journey. In a small prelude after the film's initial opening, Enders and a group of soldiers fight off Japanese soldiers in a small swamp. The scene is very brutal in that it showcases every single one of Enders' friends die in the heat of battle. Enders barely escapes with his life and suffers a sever ear injury that puts him out of commission. In order to go back into battle, Ender must prove that his ear pain has subsided. Therefore, Enders enlists the help of a friendly nurse to help him cheat on his hearing test. 

One might think that the consequence of cheating on a hearing test might come back later in the film to harm Enders or his fellow comrades. Besides seeing Enders suffer from some ear pain every once in a while, the ear injury plays no serious role in the plot at all. I don't understand why Woo went through all of this trouble to establish the issue of Enders' ear pain if only to show it hurt him every once in awhile with no serious consequences? One could have easily excised Enders' ear injury from the film entirely and saved the audience pain.

The other major issue I have with Enders concerns his PTSD. I think that integrating PTSD into a character humanizes them and helps the audience empathize with them. However, Cage goes on to slaughter over 100 Japanese soldiers throughout the film. Now, I am all for watching fun and awesome action films where the protagonist slaughters dozens of baddies (Commando, Rambo III, Hard Boiled, etc). However, Cage's character suffers from very severe PTSD. Therefore, I felt extremely uncomfortable watching an emotionally deranged man gun down countless Japanese soldiers. And to make matters worse, no other character in the film ever brings up Enders' PTSD as an issue and seem content with the guy spraying his Thompson machine gun into every Japanese soldier he comes across. If you have never seen the film before, check it out and tell me if you felt the same way. I personally feel that it is morally wrong to showcase a damaged man slaughter so many soldiers and sell it as entertainment without ever treating or dealing with the issue of PTSD within the film.

Slater returns to a John Woo film in Windtalkers.

If you can separate the thought of a soldier with PTSD from your head, than the action scenes in Windtalkers will come off well. At the time, Windtalkers featured the most epic action scenes that Woo had ever directed in his career (2008's Red Cliff proved to be far more epic). The editing, sound design, and photography of all of the action scenes is great. However, every action scene is nearly the same thing. U.S. soldiers run around, gun down enemies, call an airstrike, and than win the battle. It doesn't help that Nicolas Cage acts the same throughout every action scene. He runs around and sprays his Thompson machine gun at Japanese soldiers, only to watch them tumble over and die.

Saving Private Ryan showed how to make a war film exciting by showcasing various action scenes with different settings and concepts. That film consists of a beach invasion, a sniper face off in the rain, a gun fight in an open field, and an epic city battle. Each action scene was different and never felt tiring to watch. Unfortunately, every action scene in Windtalkers felt exactly the same to me. With no variety whatsoever and a conflicting character arc to clash with the violence, John Woo delivers on some of the biggest yet weakest action of his career. Yeah, sue me Woo fans. I said it.

I do understand and respect why Woo made this film though. The themes of honor, loyalty, and brotherhood that are so heavily prevalent in Woo's Chinese filmography are incredibly prevalent in this film. The concept of having to kill your codetalker in order to prevent them from falling into enemy hands is a great thematic concept that feels ripe for a Woo film. Woo previously made Bullet in the Head, a Vietnam war film that showed how war could bring out the worst in people. Therefore, it was nice to see Woo make a film that showed a more positive side of war, one in which heroes were born and friendships were made. In all honesty, I find this film more fun to discuss and study than to watch and enjoy.

Michael Bay eat your heart out at these explosions.

I also want to point out that I viewed the Director's Cut, the one and only Director's Cut of Woo's filmography. It seems that the Director's Cut adds over twenty minutes of additional scenes and a hell of a lot of action. If action is your thing, than I implore you to watch the expanded cut of this film. Woo racks up the kill count higher in this film than in any other film of his (besides maybe Red Cliff). However, the film felt far too long at two hours and thirty minutes. Somewhere in this muddled mess of a film is a dumb but exhilarating war picture. 

Veteran composer James Horner also scores some of the best music in his entire career with Windtalkers. Some critics and online reviews bash Horner's score for sounding too similar to his previous work. And while I agree that the score sounds a lot like past Horner scores, I love that about Horner. When I see a film composed by Horner, I typically expect that emotional and sappy Horner music that I love so much. Windtalkers balances violent and epic action scenes with small character driven moments that benefit greatly from Horner's gorgeous score. And while the content within these character driven moments is weak and generic, Horner's masterful score somehow drives it all home. Or at least helps drive it somewhat home. Even Horner's amazing music can't save the bland taste that Windtalkers will leave in your mouth.

"You survived a Woo film, congratulations."

As a die hard John Woo fan, I was quite disappointed with this film. It is not an affective action film or an affective emotional war picture either. If you are going to watch Windtalkers, know that you are simply going to get some incredible action that can run for up to 16 minutes at a time. Therefore, if you can get over the fact that the film takes a serious and sensitive time in period and turns it into a dumb as nails action film, you might enjoy it. 

Rating: 6/10 - Overlong and stereotypical storytelling bog down an otherwise action packed and beautifully scored war film.