Windtalkers

Windtalkers
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Woo
Produced by	Terence Chang Tracie Graham-Rice Alison Rosenzweig John Woo C. O. Erickson (executive producer)
Written by	Joe Batteer John Rice
Starring	Nicolas Cage Adam Beach Peter Stormare Noah Emmerich Mark Ruffalo Christian Slater
Music by	James Horner
Cinematography	Jeffrey L. Kimball
Edited by	Jeff Gullo Steven Kemper Tom Rolf
Production company	Lion Rock Productions Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Distributed by	MGM Distribution Co.
Release date	June 14, 2002 (2002-06-14)
Running time	134 minutes[1]
Country	United States Hong Kong
Language	English
Budget	$115 million[2]
Box office	$77.6 million[2]

Windtalkers is a 2002 American war film directed and produced by John Woo, and starring Nicolas Cage and Adam Beach. The film was released in the United States on June 14, 2002.

Plot

During World War II, USMC Cpl Joseph F. "Joe" Enders returns to active duty with the aid of his pharmacist, Rita, having previously survived a gruesome battle on the Solomon Islands against the Imperial Japanese Army that killed his entire squad and left him almost deaf in his left ear. Enders' new assignment is to protect Navajo code talker Pvt. Ben Yahzee, and carries a promotion for Enders to Sergeant. Sgt. Pete "Ox" Henderson also receives a parallel assignment protecting Navajo code talker Pvt. Charlie Whitehorse.

Yahzee and Whitehorse, lifelong friends from the same Navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct artillery fire. Enders and Henderson are instructed to kill their code talkers if capture is imminent so that the code cannot fall into enemy hands. As Enders and Henderson meet Yahzee and Whitehorse, it becomes apparent that the two experienced Marines are less than happy to be babysitting their Navajo codetalkers, and the Navajos must also endure racial harassment by some of the white Marines, notably Private Chick. During their missions, however, Henderson and Whitehorse discover a mutual love of music. Enders and Yahzee also discover that they have much in common, notably their Catholic upbringings.

The invasion of Saipan becomes Yahzee's and Whitehorse's first combat experience. After the beachhead is secured, the Marines come under friendly fire from U.S. artillery. Yahzee's radio is destroyed and the convoy is unable to call off the bombardment. Yahzee suggests that he disguise himself as a Japanese soldier and slip behind enemy lines to commandeer a radio, with Enders as his prisoner. Yahzee is forced to kill for the first time before he can redirect U.S. artillery fire onto the Japanese position. For their bravery, Enders is awarded a Silver Star by the commanding officer, with Yahzee's role almost ignored until Enders points him out but still credits Enders. Later, after a night of sake drinking, Yahzee performs Navajo rituals over the unconscious Enders to protect him with the spirits.

That night, the Marines camp in the nearby village of Tanapag. While Yahzee is temporarily assigned back to the command post to translate a code, Enders becomes increasingly torn because he cannot imagine killing Yahzee, despite his orders. He demands to be relieved from his unit but his request is denied. The next morning, Japanese soldiers ambush the village. Henderson is killed and Whitehorse is about to be captured. Enders sees Whitehorse being beaten and dragged away by the Japanese. Enders, realizing the Japanese will torture him for the code, throws a grenade at Whitehorse, killing him and his captors.

Yahzee returns to Tanapag and, seeing Whitehorse's body, screams at Enders to explain what happened as the village was thought to be secured. Enders, exhausted, mutters that he killed Whitehorse, but does not reveal that Whitehorse was willing to die to protect the code. Outraged, Yahzee aims his weapon at Enders but cannot bring himself to kill him. Enders confesses that he hated having to kill Whitehorse and that, like Henderson, his mission was to protect the code above all else.

The Marines are mobilized on another mission and are once again ambushed, this time near a deadly minefield on Mt. Tapochau, during which many Marines are killed. Enders, Yahzee, Chick, and Cpl. Pappas (the last of the Marines) take cover on a ridge, and see Japanese artillery fire from the top of the ridge attacking a Marine convoy below their position. Still enraged over the death of Whitehorse, Yahzee charges the Japanese line fearlessly, and in doing so, fumbles the radio needed to call in the coordinates for a bombardment. Yahzee and Enders are both shot as they retrieve the radio and call in an airstrike on the Japanese artillery. However, surrounded and knowing the Japanese will capture and torture him for the code as they almost did with Whitehorse, Yahzee entreats Enders to kill him. Enders, determined that no one else will die that day, manages to carry Yahzee to safety, albeit taking a shot in the chest. Friendly planes arrive and the Japanese position is successfully destroyed. Yahzee rejoices in their success but finds Enders mortally wounded. With his last breaths, Enders reverts to the religious upbringing he earlier claimed he had abandoned, and recites a Hail Mary.

Returning to the U.S., Yahzee, his wife, and his son George Washington Yahzee, sit atop Point Mesa in Monument Valley, Arizona, and, wearing the sacred necklaces and other Navajo ceremonial dress, performs the Navajo ritual of paying respects to Enders. He tells his son that Enders was a fierce warrior and Marine and, that if his son ever tells a story about Enders, to simply say that he was Yahzee's friend. He then cleans Enders' dog tags in holy water and lifts them to the sky while chanting in ritual.

An epilogue states that the Navajo code was crucial to America's success against Japan across the Pacific theater and that, during the war, the code was never broken.

Cast

• Nicolas Cage as Sergeant Joe Enders
• Adam Beach as Private Ben Yahzee
• Peter Stormare as Gunnery Sergeant Richard Hjelmsted, Platoon Sergeant
• Noah Emmerich as Private First Class Charles "Chick" Clusters, a BAR gunner
• Mark Ruffalo as Corporal Milo Pappas, a rifleman
• Christian Slater as Sergeant Peter "Ox" Henderson
• Roger Willie as Private Charlie Whitehorse
• Brian Van Holt as Private Andrew Harrigan, the flamethrower man
• Martin Henderson as Private Thomas Nellie, a rifleman
• Frances O'Connor as Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class Rita
• Jason Isaacs as Major Mellitz

Production

Filming locations on Hawaii included Kualoa Ranch, the location where Lost and Jurassic Park were shot. To portray the Marines in the film the producers recruited extras that were volunteers from Schofield Barracks Army Base, Hickam Air Force Base, Pearl Harbor Naval Station, and Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station. Some of the actual Marines from 4th Force Recon Company were used in the film portraying their actual job. 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 running 134 minutes.

For the F6F Hellcat fighters that appear in the beach-landing scenes on Saipan, the producers used computer-generated versions.^[3]

Release

See also

• Code talker
• List of box office bombs
• Native Americans and World War II

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Windtalkers

• Windtalkers on IMDb
• Windtalkers at the TCM Movie Database
• Windtalkers at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Windtalkers at Box Office Mojo
• Windtalkers at Rotten Tomatoes
• Windtalkers at Metacritic
• Movie stills
• Hollywood and the Pentagon: A Dangerous Liaison A documentary exploring issues relating to Department of Defense involvement in film production.
• The Navajo Code Talkers at The Natural American (includes a dictionary of the code)