"My Brother's Ass is Also A WINDTALKER" (reviewed by OG)

Plot: (from imdb.com) “WWII. Joe Enders (Nick Cage), a decorated Marine who is by-the-book to a fault, is just coming back on duty (by cheating on his medical tests). "Ox" Anderson (Christian Slater), much greener, is also getting the same new task: Protect the Navajo codetalkers (Ben Yahzee and Charles Whitehorse, respectively). While Enders is initially frustrated with his assignment, his respect grows as the codetalkers prove their worth in the brutal battle to take the Japanese island of Saipan.”

There’s one scene in WINDTALKERS, the latest John Woo war epic, that harkens back to the days of his hyper kinetic Asian action kill-em-all flicks (see HARD BOILED and THE KILLER for more). Nicholas Cage’s character, who plays a Sergeant assigned to watch over a WW2 “Windtalker” (AKA: A Native American marine designated to use the Navaho language to communicate with army bases, in this case played by Adam Beach) poses as a prisoner as the Navaho rookie poses as a Japanese soldier (in order to steal an enemy radio…I think). Cage tucks a .45 into the back of the Windtalker’s pants beforehand and acts the part of the scared soldier a few moments later as the “Japs” proceed to beat the shit out of him. In a single instant, however, the formerly unarmed soldier yanks the .45 out of his “captor’s” pants and blows away 5 enemy soldiers, only to go on and do some ridiculous side flip into the radio post and take out 3 other Japanese soldiers. This is shot in a single take, with a sweeping camera angle that catches all the action at once, a John Woo trademark that he used like a heroin addict in HARD BOILED. In that 20 second sequence, I let a huge stupid grin crawl over my face. But as the film fell back into its former pace, the grin went the way of the dodo.

This, sadly enough, is a case of a John Woo film that takes itself WAY too seriously while forgetting to deliver the goods that usually come with a solid war film effort (i.e.: Saving Private Ryan: serious. Dead Presidents: Hella-funny). The battle scenes only feel authentic when shot from far away, and the close ups of individual skirmishes feel like John Woo action scenes shot by a tame imitator. I imagine that Woo chose not to inject his scenes with the ballet-style shoot-em-up grace that he usually uses out of respect for the fact that this was based on a real war and a true phenomenon, but the effect produced does more to discredit the story than anything else in the film…with the exception of the cheesy clichés that pop in and out of the film like a turd not quite ready to make it’s exit. There’s the racist soldier who hates “injuns”, the young kid who has a wife back home (AKA: Dead Meat), and the obligatory “look-how-nice-the-Americans-were-to-the-Japanese-civilians” scene that made me laugh out loud (*cough* Hiroshima! *cough*) There’s also a love interest-back-home subplot that goes absolutely nowhere, and an entire slew of wasted, high-caliber actors (Christian Slater, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich, and Jason Isaacs, to name a few) whose parts are laughable at best (although one of em DOES get his head chopped off).

And then there’s Nicholas Cage…an actor who I used to totally respect and admire. His work in “Raising Arizona”, “Kiss of Death”, and “Face/Off” are faves of mine, but lately the man has been slacking off worse than Charlton Heston’s memory. I mean…”Captain Corelli’s Mandolin”? “Family Man?” “Gone in Sixty Seconds?” “Con-Air”? (The last 2 are cool flicks, but his performances sucked balls)…and now this: a role that should have provided him with a dramatic challenge. Instead he wanders through the entire flick looking either a) drunk, b) like he has to take a massive dump, c) tired, or d) all of the above. It’s been a sad progression, both for Woo and Cage, whose work I used to die for, and now look forward to with an impending sense of dread.

Oh…and the DVD’s special features include a few trailers and chapter selection. Whooptee fucking shit. They may as well call the ability to fast forward and turn the fucking DVD player OFF “special features”. Ugh.

(10.14.02)