Windtalkers [2002]
RRP: £19.99
Our Price: £2.33 (subject to change)
Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review
John Woo's reputation as the world's best action director hits a major breakdown with Windtalkers, an overlong, over-silly, overwritten and overacted entry in the current American craze for war movies that combine extreme patriotism with hordes of Yankee extras getting bloodily cut to pieces until a final uplifting victory. US Marine Nicolas Cage--with a scarred ear and a fed-up look--is given the job of looking after Navajo Adam Beach, whose complex language is the basis of a code being used to fool the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. His orders are to protect not Beach but the code, (including orders to kill Beach if it looks like capture is imminent) which makes for an uneasy progress from hatred-at-first-sight through growing respect to agonised male bonding. From an interesting historical footnote, Woo and his collaborators spin out an unlikely and repetitive platoon story, with an all-cliché bunch of grunts spitting out hardboiled dialogue between the noise and violence. The Woo touch is evident; from the astonishing pullback from a butterfly over bloodied waters to the thick of hand-to-hand fighting, but too many of the battle scenes are just more explosions-and-body-parts along the same lines of Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down.
On the DVD: Windtalkers contains an 11-minute TV filler making-of featurette; footage of the entire cast (except Cage) romping through the research process at Actors' Bootcamp; plus on-set diaries, i.e., B-roll footage of the crew working on four big action scenes. Of the two commentary tracks, the first offers a lot of mutual stroking with the occasional insight from Cage and Slater, the other offers Navajo actor Roger Willie and real-life codetalker/technical advisor Albert Smith. The language options, for soundtrack and subtitles, are English and (oddly) Czech. --Kim Newman
Windtalkers
Review date: 2008-11-07 Rating: 8 out of 10
I picked this DVD up dirt cheap and was pleasantly surprised. American WW11 films not normally my cup of tea but this is action packed and well acted without too much swearing. Worth watching.
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Reviews
Except for the 'naval ships clips' this movie is GOOD!!Review date: 2008-08-08 Rating: 10 out of 10This movie is very good, I highly recomend it to every one who likes warfare films. This has alot of action in it as well as friendship, a bit of love and romance. But of course it is mostly a war based movie, and after my opinion wel enjoyable. It is worth every penny! Go buy it!!!!!entertaining stuffReview date: 2008-03-14 Rating: 10 out of 10I saw this film on the television, & absolutely enjoyed it, great acting from nicolas cage, i was considering buying it untill i saw the reviews, maybe i should watch it again before i make my mind up.Don't do it!Review date: 2008-02-09 Rating: 2 out of 10As a student of anthropology with a particular interest in Native American culture I was drawn to this film after I had visited the Navajo Nation Reserve in Arizona where they have a memorial and exhibition to the 'code talkers'. I was thinking it might tell some aspect of their story, how wrong. This film is just a series or silly plot points, with silly explosions and silly 'heroics'. It does not tell the story of the Navajo's work in the Pacific campaign, it tells us nothing. A longer review would waste even more time on this terrible film. A true shocker and possibly the worst film I have ever seen, and I mean that!Brilliant!!!Review date: 2008-02-01 Rating: 8 out of 10Brilliant film, full of action that you need to have in a war film. But I have seen better war films such as Saving Private Ryan, Band Of Brothers, Enemy At The Gates, Black Hawk Down, Tigerland.
Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Nicolas Cage|Adam Beach|Christian Slater|Peter Stormare
Creators:
Nicolas Cage|Adam Beach|Christian Slater|Peter Stormare (Primary Contributor)
Director(s):
Recording label: MGM Entertainment Manufacturer: MGM EntertainmentEAN: 5050070008098Binding: DVDNumber of items: 1Format: Collector's Edition, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen, Release date: 2003-02-10Number of discs: 1Aspect ratio: 2.40:1Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and overRegion code: 2Running time: 128 minutesTheatrical release date: 2002-06-14Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Japanese (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Subtitled)