Wind Talkers (2002)

Directed by: John Woo | 153 minutes | action, drama, war | Actors: Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, Brian Van Holt, Martin Henderson, Roger Willie, Frances OConnor, Christian Slater, Jason Isaacs, Billy Morts, Cameron Thor, Kevin Cooney, Holmes Osborne, Keith Campbell , Clayton J. Barber

Joe Enders’ military career progresses well until in 1943 he has to defend a position at all costs in a swamp area in the Solomon Islands. All the higher ranks have been killed, so he is put in charge. The ammunition runs out and the men beg him to pull out of this hopeless situation. However, he stubbornly sticks to the assignment. Then everyone dies and he remains the only one, albeit seriously injured, alive.

In a hospital in Hawaii he tries to recover physically and that succeeds reasonably due to his great perseverance. Spiritually, however, he is broken. Even the support and attention of nurse Rita (Frances O’Connor) does not free him from the guilt of the men who died under his command. He does accept her help to have him declared fit for duty again by means of a trick. He doesn’t like the assignment to act as a babysitter for the Navajo Indian Ben Yahzee.

Yahzee and Whitehorse are part of a group of Navajo Indians who are being trained to be code talkers. As members of the reconnaissance troops, they relay the enemy’s positions so that they can be fired upon from aircraft carriers or by air strike. The code language is based on their native language, but not equal to it. A word like ‘tank’ has been replaced by a new term. So the Japanese are of no use to any Navajo Indian and they would do anything to get their hands on a code talker alive, but of course the Americans do everything they can to ensure that this does not happen. An exciting fact, but unfortunately the importance of the deployment of the code speakers is nowhere made clear. They don’t do anything in the film that someone who just speaks English couldn’t have done.

‘Windtalkers’ contains the fixed ingredients of an average war film. There is a stark contrast between the experienced, cynical Enders and the newcomer Yahzee, who volunteered with patriotism. There are racial tensions that are reflected in Whitehorse’s many white-faced jokes and Private Chick’s (Noah Emmerich)’s derogatory comments about redskins. Women and home are missed and they no longer know why they wanted to be employed so badly. Only the Indian rituals deviate from that pattern, but are very pure and special, so that part remains in exoticism. Fortunately, the actors play solidly and enthusiastically, so that balancing on the edge of melodrama remains fortunately on the right side of the line. And maybe there’s just one explosion too many, but the soldiers heroism is certainly sympathetic.