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WINDTALKERS
Director's Edition
Review by Gordon Justesen
Stars:
Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, Brian Van
Holt, Roger Willie, Frances O’Connor, Christian Slater
Director: John Woo
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, French Stereo
Surround
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1
Studio: MGM
Features: See Review
Length: 153 Minutes
Release Date: May 20, 2003
“You
seen any combat, Yahzee?”
“I’m
looking forward to getting into some.”
Film ****
When I first saw John Woo’s World War II saga Windtalkers, I was blown away as I always am by Woo’s work, but
noticed a slight flaw or two that kept me from giving it the full four star
treatment. Now, with the release of this one of a kind three disc set, which
includes the extended director’s cut of the film, I am happy to report that I
have upgraded my from three and a half to four stars. The reason for this is
pure and simple; the 20 minutes of added footage makes the movie experience all
the more exciting and explosive. Usually, director’s cuts can either make or
break a good movie, but in the case of Windtalkers,
the decision to restore the cut scenes was a thoroughly right one.
Windtalkers works astonishingly well as both a full-throttle action epic and an
important history lesson about an area of World War II you may not have
discussed in history class. Before this movie's release, I had never heard of
the Navajo codetalkers and how they helped the American forces in numerous WWII
battles, using a code that was thankfully never broken by enemy forces. Action
maestro John Woo has sort of switched gears this time around by making a more
serious picture that he's normally use to making, though the level of violence
is still high as in the Woo tradition. The result is a dynamite mixture of a
thought provoking area of history with that of some of the most heart-stopping
and brutal combat sequences that adds up to a much memorable war film.
Nicolas Cage stars
in yet another brutally powerful performance as Sgt. Joe Enders, who at the
opening of the film is recovering at a military hospital in Hawaii following a
bloody battle on the Solomon Islands, where he was the only survivor. When
beauty of a nurse Rita (Frances O'Connor) helps Joe in the steps of
rehabilitation, Joe is soon able to return to active duty, though certain
physical and mental scars remain. Joe is soon handed special orders upon his
return, which is to protect one of the newly assigned Navajo soldiers, who have
been recruited to use their language as a mechanism to fool the Japanese.
Joe also finds
assistance in fellow marine Pete "Ox" Anderson (Christian Slater), who
has also been served the same set of orders. The catch of this is assignment is
tricky. They cannot allow any of the codetalkers to fall into enemy hands. If
they are, the orders are to kill their codetalkers as a way of protecting the
code, which of course the Navajos are not aware of. The new soldiers brought in
are Pvt. Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach) and Charlie Whitehorse (Roger Willie). Joe is
assigned to Yahzee, while Anderson is assigned to Whitehorse. The mission is to
take control of the island of Saipan, which is controlled by Japanese forces.
The battle scenes
in Windtalkers are the some of the most lengthy and bloody in movie
history, which is just what I would expect from a director like Woo. The action
movie maestro doesn't hold a single thing back from the battle scenes, and if
you are the squeamish type chances are you won't make it through the movie. As
for myself, I can honestly say that after watching this movie I'm never going
anywhere near barbed wire fences. What Woo achieves by going full throttle with
these sequences is giving perhaps the most devastating up-close look at graphic
battle carnage. I can seriously say that no other war movie has delivered a
scene like the one where a soldier is hit by a sniper's bullet and lands front
and center on a land mine. It's truly a stunning sequence.
If the movie has a
slight problem or two, it may be in a few of the characterizations in the
platoon squad, which seem more like formulaic caricatures that we've seen in
countless other war movies. The one character I could've definitely done without
is the obligatory bigot who can't stand the fact that Navajos are serving with
them. Of course, he comes around towards the end when his life is saved by you
know who. However, this is my lone quibble with the movie, and it hardly lessens
the high power of the overall movie, though at the same time it prevents me from
giving it a full four star rating.
Still, the dramatic
tension is always high, and the relationship between the characters of Sgt.
Enders and Pvt. Yahzee is the heart of the movie, and director Woo’s stunning
battle scenes will give action fans and Woo admirers alike a lot of bang for
their buck. Cage, as always, does a remarkable job of delving into his character
and more or less becoming it. Enders is both a dedicated soldier who is tortured
by his past experience, and Cage’s performance is stunning in the way his
certain emotions are conveyed. As Yahzee, Adam Beach makes quite a star-making
performance as the calm and spiritual Navajo who’s proud to be involved in
doing his part for his family and country.
It may be true that
moviegoers have had enough of war films, and due to unfortunate bad timing, I
suppose, Windtalkers suffered at the
box office. But this truly deserves a look, as this one succeeds highly on both
action and story. After all, when you have such a strong talent combination like
Cage and Woo, who also collaborated on the 1997 masterpiece Face/Off,
the result is bound to be explosively good.
Video ****
MGM’s original disc needed improvements in several areas, and the video
transfer not only exceeds that of the prior disc, but qualifies as one of the
best looking transfers of this year. Where as the previous disc had near
complete image sharpness, and a few image flaws on the side, this new release is
as clear and excessively detailed as you could ever want a print to be. One
minor flaw in the original disc was that of softness presented in several
nighttime shots, and here those shots have improved a hundred percent. This disc
also happens to be dual layered, which can easily explain the improvements in
the picture, since the previous release was that of a double sided disc. MGM
should be proud of themselves for an extraordinary job well done.
Audio ****
Since the original disc contained quite a superbly bombastic 5.1 mix, I
wasn’t expecting anything less in this new version. The reference quality of
this track still stands strong, with the frequent war sequences practically
turning your living room into a battlefield, thanks to the strong level of range
applied to this release. If anything, this should rank right up there with the
other terrific sounding war flicks on DVD, such as We
Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor, and Black
Hawk Down.
Features ****
Here is where an improvement was sorely needed. If you happened to have
bought the first disc, you will recall a surprising lack of extras, but now MGM
has pretty much erased the memory of that disc with an all new, wonderfully
packaged 3 Disc Set, which qualifies for the best all around release of 2003.
Disc 1, The Feature Film, contains three terrific commentary tracks; one
with John Woo and producer Terence Chang, the second with stars Nicolas Cage and
Christian Slater, and the third with actor Roger Willie (Charlie) and Navajo
consultant Albert Smith. Each commentary is wonderfully informative and a good
listen.
Disc 2, which goes beyond the story of the movie, contains three detailed
documentaries. The first is a historical documentary titled “The Code
Talkers-A Secret Code of Honor”. The second is WWII Tribute Piece titled
“American Heroes: A Tribute to the Navajo Codetalkers”. The third and final
featurette is a look at James Horner’s powerful musical score to the movie
titled “The Music of Windtalkers”.
Disc 3, which goes behind the scenes, features multi-view angle shots of
four key battle sequences, four Fly-on-the-Set scene diaries, a intriguing look
at the actors going through boot camp including commentary from various actors
on their boot camp experience, a behind the scenes photo gallery, and a John Woo
biography.
Summary: