the audience applauded

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

How sad is this?

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

John Woo's Second World War film is, it has to be said, no equal for his 1980s classic HEROES SHED NO TEARS, which pushed the boundaries of cinema whilst at the same time offering a decent war-time actioner. WINDTALKERS reunites two of Woo's previous heroes – Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater – into what is a generally effective war film, chronicling the lives of those courageous men who risked and more often than not sacrificed their lives in battle against the enemy. Woo charts the expected friendships, post traumatic stress, injuries, and racism with moderate success, and he's helped by a good quality cast – especially the unknown Beach as the sympathetic Native American hero. Cage is introspective and tormented, which is something a little different from his usual characters; I liked him, and I also liked Slater's work here immensely.But things never change and, as usual, the cinematography and action sequences are what work best in this movie. Woo offers tons of bomb-laden action and doesn't shy away from the full horrors of warfare either – there are decapitations, throat-slittings, and limbs being blown off, all shown in unflinching detail. The film does become a little repetitive as it shows Cage machine-gunning dozens of the Japanese enemy but hey, COMMANDO was a repetitive movie and still stands as one of the action genre's best. The special effects are tremendous – especially the CGI bombers flying over the lush countryside – and war fans will be left happy with what is a pretty good genre effort, and pleasingly old-fashioned in this post-modern era.

Over the years, I've learned that there are two kinds of war movies: the gritty psychological drama about the heart and horror of battle, and the silly action blockbuster about heroes kicking butts and taking names. It's one or the other. "Windtalkers" shows that you shouldn't try your hand at both in a single movie. Honesty, a John Woo war movie has a lot of potential. The man is the master of shootouts and gun violence in movies. But this movie can't decide if it wants to be more like "Black Hawk Down" or more like "Rambo". One minute, Nicolas Cage's character is a stressed out sergeant dealing with the traumatic experience of war, and the next minute, he grabs his Thompson SMG, runs out to the open and randomly fires in the air, somehow killing 20 Japanese soldiers with a single magazine. This is a two-and-a-half hour movie, and it remains inconsistent the entire time. And it's all topped off with a clichéd white savior ending where said white savior carries the Navajo man on his back and unsurprisingly dies breathing his final words to him. If you want to watch a cool war movie, this should be the last one on your list. If you want to watch a cool John Woo war movie, just watch "Bullet in the Head". You'll be a lot more satisfied out of that one.

During World War II, Navajos were recruited by the U.S. military to send and transmit messages in a code based on their complex language; the Japanese were never able to crack the code, and the tale of these Navajos and their contribution to winning the war in the Pacific would have made an engrossing film. John Woo's "Windtalkers" starts promisingly with a young Navajo, Ben Yahzee, played by Adam Beach, bidding his family goodbye and boarding a bus to join the army. While the early days of Yahzee's indoctrination and training in the Navajo-based code are touched upon, the film soon veers away and follows Sergeant Joe Enders, played by Nicolas Cage, whose sometimes contrived story is more conventional and less interesting than that of the Navajo recruits. Cage is assigned to protect Beach and his knowledge of the code from capture by the Japanese; Beach is unaware that Cage has been instructed to kill him rather than let him fall into Japanese hands."Windtalkers" does detail the prejudice and persecution endured by the Navajos from both other enlisted men and their superiors, although to say the Navajos resemble the Japanese is an implausible stretch. Beach and Roger Willie as Charlie Whitehorse are the only two Navajo characters with any screen time. While Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux and studied Navajo for the film, Willie is a Navajo of the Wateredge Clan. Although Cage gives a solid performance as Enders and is ably supported by Christian Slater, Mark Ruffalo, Noah Emmerich, and Peter Stornare, the excellently conceived and filmed battle scenes upstage the actors. Often gruesomely graphic, John Woo stages sweeping battlefield scenes that are exhilarating and spectacular. Planes swoop overhead, bombs detonate and send streamers of shrapnel into the air, flame throwers ignite tanks and soldiers alike, and the camera moves in to capture a human torch or a savage bayoneting in closeup. The action and lush green Hawaiian shooting locations are beautifully captured by Jeffrey L. Kimball's excellent cinematography, and a fine James Horner score further enhances the film.A solid cast, good production values, stunningly realistic battle scenes, "Windtalkers" has a lot going for it, but ultimately the film missed an opportunity to recount a fascinating footnote to World War II history. The movie begins and ends amidst the majestic splendor of Monument Valley and does pay passing homage to the contribution of the Navajos to the war effort and final victory. However, the focus has been misplaced on a white solder rather than on the Navajos, which lessens the film's import. Instead of a classic retelling of a near-forgotten story, "Windtalkers" is a well acted, but routine war movie with some spectacular battle scenes that come perilously close to overwhelming the personal stories.

W i n d t a l k e r sDirected by John WooThe heroism of certain illustrious representatives of the species Homo Sapiens has never ceased to amaze me. Growing up as a boy in Umhlali I had heard people speak with pride of the incredible courage of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Fatima Meer and Alan Paton. I did not know then of the astounding bravery of people like Ismail Meer and Nelson Mandela or H. A. Naidoo or Dr Goonam or the Rev Beyers Naude. Why all this?I have just seen Windtalkers with Nicholas Cage directed by John Woo, possibly the best war movie I have seen this year. It is certainly up there with GLORY! and Saving Private Ryan. It is a superlative effort and has all the true grit of reality. Woo pays meticulous attention to detail and his camera pays loving homage to the American South West with its stunning landscape and its unearthly vista.This movie had been panned by certain critics. Since it is a movie about the indigenous American Indian contribution to the war effort against Nippon and since, like most South Africans, I had grown up on a diet of John Wayne and Alan Ladd, I decided that I needed some balance.I had also seen how some of the critics had panned brilliant epics like Michael Collins, The Patriot, The Legend of Bhagat Singh etc. and I suspected that they had another establishment agenda. So I decided to ignore the critics' comments; and seldom have I been happier with following my own Spirit!The film depicts both Japanese and American heroism - and American racism. The Navajo volunteered for this War - and there is honour and glory in the movie even though Ben, the one code warrior actually names his son, George for George Washington - it reminded me of a South African Indian who named his son, 'Clive'. He, of course, didn't know the significance of Robert Clive in India's history - and didn't care to know.One of the American soldiers talks of how his father remembered how the Indians were hunted like gophers and $3 was paid for each Comanche ear that was brought in. The devastation wreaked on flesh and blood by steel and explosive is demonstrated here in all its heart- wrenching reality as human beings behave worse than any force of nature, whether volcano, tornado or earthquake. These soldiers are not supermen, just very human men, trying to survive, trying to win, trying, in the end, to be human beings despite all the terror unleashed upon them by forces outside their control, forces which manipulate them like toys. This is a movie well worth seeing if one is interested in history and the kind of experiences our forebears went through. Victors always write history, but at last something of our own history is being written and shown. In a sense, that means we are winning too. And those uncomfortable with our history will always condemn what we know and what we write.Review By Deena Padayachee