'Windtalkers' lends wings to code talkers' tale

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

WINDTALKERS (Rated R with much graphic violence) Three Stars (Good) John Woo's film takes an intriguing aspect of World War II, American Indian code talkers, and showcases it in an exciting but especially bloody variation of the Hollywood war movie. Nicolas Cage and Adam Beach co-star. MGM, 133 minutes.

Inspired by the true story of Navajo radio operators who communicated in their native language to foil the Japanese, Woo and his writers have fashioned a tale of white and Indian Marines overcoming racist stereotypes and prejudices to fight together on the Pacific islands.

Nicolas Cage stars as Joe Enders, a veteran soldier wracked with guilt over a previous incident when his decision-making led to the deaths of everyone else in his squad.

Now Enders is on a special assignment, as a watchdog in charge of a fellow Marine, a newly arrived Navajo named Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach).

Yahzee is a code talker, and Enders has been ordered to protect the code at all cost. That means serving as Yahzee's bodyguard when he's on the radio in combat.

But it also means Enders may one day have to kill Yahzee to prevent the young soldier from being captured by the Japanese. The brass fears a Navajo radio operator may be forced to divulge the code to the enemy.

Such moral conflict fits perfectly into the Woo tradition of torn and tormented action heroes. And that perfectly describes the cynical, guilt-ridden Enders, as he refuses to offer much companionship to the eager Yahzee.

In contrast, the film's other key pairing — Ox Henderson (Christian Slater) and Charlie Whitehorse (Roger Willie) — get along famously.

Woo ("Face/Off," "Mission: Impossible II") stresses the harmony between the two men quite literally when Ox weaves the sound of his harmonica around the Native American melodies played by Whitehorse on a Navajo flute.

The script by John Rice and Joe Batteer centers the action during the battle of Saipan (even though historians tell us the Navajo contribution was even greater during the subsequent battle of Iwo Jima.)

"Windtalkers" follows the company of Marines across Saipan, fighting for hill and valley after hill and valley, bloody inch by bloody inch.

Cage plays Enders as an endlessly morose, guilt-ridden fellow, a guy you let eat his K rations alone. However, the character's unapproachable quality only helps throw our sympathies to young Yahzee, well played by Beach (who previously starred in "Smoke Signals").

Unlike some films, which allow white characters to overshadow heroic ethnic minorities, "Windtalkers" begins and ends with Yahzee in his gorgeous homeland — and it's his journey we take in the film.

Woo, the modern master of action violence, gives the battle scenes the explosive intensity you'd expect. Planes zoom impressively over island battlefields, dropping bombs on entrenched artillery, as Woo's cameras pan and pivot in constant movement.

Though some moments are particularly stunning, including a Japanese sniper being shot out of a tree top, Woo reins in some of his trademark artistry in favor of a more realistic approach to battlefield mayhem.

Be warned: The violence is on a par with the most graphic war films of the modern era; and reaches its peak with a horrific decapitation.

But fortunately, Woo keeps the spotlight on the film's central point: That a small but brave group of Navajo Indians under fire provided a pivotal service to the war effort.

Rated R, with much graphic violence.