Windtalkers
Encyclopedia
Windtalkers is a 2002 action war film
directed by John Woo
. Nicolas Cage
and Christian Slater
star as two US
Marine
sergeant
s assigned to protect Navajo
code talker
s (Adam Beach
and Roger Willie) in Saipan
during World War II
.
) rallies to return to active duty with the aid of his pharmacist (Frances O'Connor
) after previously surviving a gruesome battle against the Imperial Japanese Army that killed his entire squad and left him almost deaf from a Japanese grenade explosion. Enders' new assignment is to protect Navajo
code talker
Pvt. Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach
), which earns him to the rank of sergeant. Sgt. Ox Anderson (Christian Slater
) also receives a parallel assignment protecting Navajo code talker Pvt. Charlie Whitehorse (Roger Willie).
Yahzee and Whitehorse, both life long friends from the same Navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct battleship bombardments of Japanese entrenched positions. Enders and Anderson are told that the code cannot fall into enemy hands, implying that they are to kill their code talkers if capture is imminent.
The surge at the beach of Saipan is Yahzee and Whitehorse's first combat experience. After the beachhead
is secured, the Marines comes under friendly fire by American artillery
. Yahzee's radio is destroyed and the convoy is unable to call off the bombardment.
Without the ability to communicate and American artillery shells raining down on them, Yahzee disguises himself as an Imperial Japanese soldier and slips behind enemy lines taking Enders as his prisoner of war in search of a radio. Enders eliminates several Japanese soldiers and Yahzee is forced to kill for the first time, slaying a Japanese radioman before he can redirect American artillery fire onto the Japanese position.
Yahzee is sent back to headquarters and that night the Marines make camp in a village thought to be secured. Later the next morning, Japanese soldiers ambush the camp. During the fight Anderson is decapitated and his code talker Pvt. Whitehorse is about to be captured by the Japanese. Enders sees Whitehorse being beaten and dragged away by the Japanese and tries to shoot the captors with his side arm, but it has run out of ammo. Enders primes a grenade as Whitehorse nods to him, allowing Enders to throw the grenade at him in order to protect the code, and the ensuing explosion kills both Whitehorse and the Japanese captors. Yahzee returns to the front-line and soon learns that Enders killed Whitehorse. Outraged, Yahzee aims his weapon at Enders and attempts to kill him, but cannot bring himself to do it.
Soon after, the Marines are mobilized on another mission. But they are yet again ambushed, this time near a deadly minefield. Barely able to fight their way out of the kill zone and take cover on an old battle torn ridge, the Marines see Japanese artillery fire coming on top of the same ridge which is decimating American troops below their position. Still enraged over the death of Whitehorse, Yahzee charges the Japanese line fearlessly, and in so doing, fumbles the radio needed to call in bombardments. Yahzee and Enders are both shot as they attempt to retrieve the radio. Enders manages to carry Yahzee to safety after taking a shot in the chest. With his last breath Enders confesses that he hated having to kill Whitehorse, that his mission was to protect the code above all else.
Back in the U.S., Yahzee, his wife, and his son sit on atop of Point Mesa in Monument Valley
, Arizona, and perform the Navajo ritual of paying respects to the man who saved his life.
when Termath took a brief hiatus from acting for actual military service, enlisting in the United States Army Reserve
. Filming locations on Hawaii
included Kualoa Ranch
, the location where Lost
and Jurassic Park
were shot. Some violence was trimmed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
This violence trim was restored for the Director's cut released on DVD.
, based on 168 reviews (57 positive, 111 negative). Roger Ebert
gave the film two stars, remarking that "the filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches, while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage".
The movie was criticized for featuring the Navajo characters only in supporting roles; they were not the primary focus of the film.
It was further criticized for its use of stereotypes of both Native Americans and east Asians.
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
directed by John Woo
John Woo
John Woo Yu-Sen SBS is a Hong Kong-based film director and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion, Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard...
. Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
and Christian Slater
Christian Slater
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
star as two US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Marine
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
s assigned to protect Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
code talker
Code talker
Code talkers was a term used to describe people who talk using a coded language. It is frequently used to describe 400 Native American Marines who served in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages...
s (Adam Beach
Adam Beach
Adam Ruebin Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor.He is best known for his roles as Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yazzie in Windtalkers, Dr...
and Roger Willie) in Saipan
Battle of Saipan
The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June-9 July 1944. The Allied invasion fleet embarking the expeditionary forces left Pearl Harbor on 5 June 1944, the day before Operation Overlord in Europe was...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Plot
World War II Sgt. Joe Enders (Nicolas CageNicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
) rallies to return to active duty with the aid of his pharmacist (Frances O'Connor
Frances O'Connor
-Background:O'Connor was born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father. When O'Connor was two, her family moved back to Perth, Western Australia. O'Connor was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the Mercedes College in Perth...
) after previously surviving a gruesome battle against the Imperial Japanese Army that killed his entire squad and left him almost deaf from a Japanese grenade explosion. Enders' new assignment is to protect Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
code talker
Code talker
Code talkers was a term used to describe people who talk using a coded language. It is frequently used to describe 400 Native American Marines who served in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was the transmission of secret tactical messages...
Pvt. Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach
Adam Beach
Adam Ruebin Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor.He is best known for his roles as Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yazzie in Windtalkers, Dr...
), which earns him to the rank of sergeant. Sgt. Ox Anderson (Christian Slater
Christian Slater
Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
) also receives a parallel assignment protecting Navajo code talker Pvt. Charlie Whitehorse (Roger Willie).
Yahzee and Whitehorse, both life long friends from the same Navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct battleship bombardments of Japanese entrenched positions. Enders and Anderson are told that the code cannot fall into enemy hands, implying that they are to kill their code talkers if capture is imminent.
The surge at the beach of Saipan is Yahzee and Whitehorse's first combat experience. After the beachhead
Beachhead
Beachhead is a military term used to describe the line created when a unit reaches a beach, and begins to defend that area of beach, while other reinforcements help out, until a unit large enough to begin advancing has arrived. It is sometimes used interchangeably with Bridgehead and Lodgement...
is secured, the Marines comes under friendly fire by American artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
. Yahzee's radio is destroyed and the convoy is unable to call off the bombardment.
Without the ability to communicate and American artillery shells raining down on them, Yahzee disguises himself as an Imperial Japanese soldier and slips behind enemy lines taking Enders as his prisoner of war in search of a radio. Enders eliminates several Japanese soldiers and Yahzee is forced to kill for the first time, slaying a Japanese radioman before he can redirect American artillery fire onto the Japanese position.
Yahzee is sent back to headquarters and that night the Marines make camp in a village thought to be secured. Later the next morning, Japanese soldiers ambush the camp. During the fight Anderson is decapitated and his code talker Pvt. Whitehorse is about to be captured by the Japanese. Enders sees Whitehorse being beaten and dragged away by the Japanese and tries to shoot the captors with his side arm, but it has run out of ammo. Enders primes a grenade as Whitehorse nods to him, allowing Enders to throw the grenade at him in order to protect the code, and the ensuing explosion kills both Whitehorse and the Japanese captors. Yahzee returns to the front-line and soon learns that Enders killed Whitehorse. Outraged, Yahzee aims his weapon at Enders and attempts to kill him, but cannot bring himself to do it.
Soon after, the Marines are mobilized on another mission. But they are yet again ambushed, this time near a deadly minefield. Barely able to fight their way out of the kill zone and take cover on an old battle torn ridge, the Marines see Japanese artillery fire coming on top of the same ridge which is decimating American troops below their position. Still enraged over the death of Whitehorse, Yahzee charges the Japanese line fearlessly, and in so doing, fumbles the radio needed to call in bombardments. Yahzee and Enders are both shot as they attempt to retrieve the radio. Enders manages to carry Yahzee to safety after taking a shot in the chest. With his last breath Enders confesses that he hated having to kill Whitehorse, that his mission was to protect the code above all else.
Back in the U.S., Yahzee, his wife, and his son sit on atop of Point Mesa in Monument Valley
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah , near the Four Corners area...
, Arizona, and perform the Navajo ritual of paying respects to the man who saved his life.
Cast
- Nicolas CageNicolas CageNicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
- Sergeant Joe Enders - Adam BeachAdam BeachAdam Ruebin Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor.He is best known for his roles as Tommy on Walker, Texas Ranger, Kickin' Wing in Joe Dirt, Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes in Flags of Our Fathers, Private Ben Yazzie in Windtalkers, Dr...
- Private Ben Yahzee - Roger Willie - Private Charlie Whitehorse
- Peter StormarePeter Stormareis a Swedish film, stage, voice and television actor as well as a theatrical director, playwright and musician.- Early life :...
- Gunnery Sergeant Hjelmstad - Noah EmmerichNoah EmmerichNoah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, Super 8 and Little Children.-Early life:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family,...
- Private First Class Chick - Mark RuffaloMark RuffaloMark Alan Ruffalo is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter. He starred in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Zodiac, Shutter Island, Just Like Heaven, You Can Count on Me and The Kids Are All Right for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best...
- Corporal Pappas - Brian Van HoltBrian Van Holt-Early life:Van Holt was born in Waukegan, Illinois and raised in California. Despite his Dutch surname, he is of mainly Scotch-Irish ancestry. Van Holt has a degree in Sociology from UCLA. At 18 years of age, he struck the perfect image of a Huntington Beach, California surfer...
- Private Harrigan - Martin HendersonMartin HendersonMartin Henderson is a New Zealand actor, well known to American audiences for his starring role in the ABC TV series Off the Map, while remaining known in his home country for his teenage role as Stuart Neilson in the soap opera Shortland Street.-Life and career:Henderson was born in Auckland, New...
- Private First Class Nellie - Christian SlaterChristian SlaterChristian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...
- Sergeant Pete "Ox" Anderson - Frances O'ConnorFrances O'Connor-Background:O'Connor was born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, England to a pianist mother and nuclear physicist father. When O'Connor was two, her family moved back to Perth, Western Australia. O'Connor was raised a Roman Catholic and attended the Mercedes College in Perth...
- Rita - Jason IsaacsJason IsaacsJason Isaacs is an English actor born in Liverpool, who is best known for his performance as the villain Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, the brutal Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot and as lifelong criminal Michael Caffee in the internationally broadcast American television series...
- Major Mellitz - Billy Morts - Fortino
- Cameron ThorCameron ThorGregory Cameron Thor is an actor best known for playing Lewis Dodgson, a character from the film Jurassic Park. While his character was a major part of the sequel novel, The Lost World, the character was left out of the movie. He also appeared in the 1991 films Hook and Curly Sue. He is currently...
- Mertens
Production
Steve Termath was originally cast for the role of Private Nellie. The role, however, went to Martin HendersonMartin Henderson
Martin Henderson is a New Zealand actor, well known to American audiences for his starring role in the ABC TV series Off the Map, while remaining known in his home country for his teenage role as Stuart Neilson in the soap opera Shortland Street.-Life and career:Henderson was born in Auckland, New...
when Termath took a brief hiatus from acting for actual military service, enlisting in the United States Army Reserve
United States Army Reserve
The United States Army Reserve is the federal reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the reserve components of the United States Army....
. Filming locations on Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
included Kualoa Ranch
Kualoa Ranch
Kualoa Ranch is the landowner of Kaaawa Valley, also commonly known as Kualoa Valley, on the windward coast of the island of Oahu in Hawaii. This place was sacred to ancient Oahuans from the 13th to the 18th century, as it was where Laa-mai-kahiki settled after visiting Kauai and before returning...
, the location where Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
and Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park (film)
Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
were shot. Some violence was trimmed in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.
This violence trim was restored for the Director's cut released on DVD.
Reception
The film reportedly cost $115 million, but made only just under $41 million at the US box-office and a combined $77.6 million worldwide. The film's release was delayed multiple times, and it received mostly negative reviews. It currently holds a 33% approval rating from Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on 168 reviews (57 positive, 111 negative). Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film two stars, remarking that "the filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches, while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage".
The movie was criticized for featuring the Navajo characters only in supporting roles; they were not the primary focus of the film.
It was further criticized for its use of stereotypes of both Native Americans and east Asians.
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Winner/Nominee | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Harry Award | Appreciation of History | ||
| World Stunt Awards | Brett A. Jones | Best Fire Stunt | ||
| Al Goto & David Wald | Best Fire Stunt | |||
| Spencer Sano | Best High Work | |||
External links
- Official site
- Movie stills
- Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Dangerous Liaison A documentary exploring issues relating to pentagonThe PentagonThe Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
involvement in film production.