Windtalkers, les messagers du vent

A solidly directed film that became a huge flop. It’s hard to say what went wrong. Perhaps it needed a better script, but what it certainly lacks is at least one scene that would grab the viewer by the heart, though some scenes, especially the ones that present the Indians more closely, e.g. while making music, are sensitively filmed. And Nicolas Cage? He's not a bad actor, I can easily believe him as a soldier, but he is, let's face it, a bit jaded of late and doesn't have the potential to help hold a film commercially anymore. (30/11/2002)

En tant que film d'action simple mais efficace (voir Broken Arrow), Windtalkers serait aujourd'hui considéré comme étant trop lent et lourd. Mais il ne voulait pas être un simple film d'action et mélange des esprits indiens et de l'humanisme avec des tirs et des explosions. Et le résultat est amer comme une pomme pourrie. En fait, la spiritualité indienne est assez peu fiable et est en contraste avec l'égoïsme des scènes d'action héroïques (plans ralentis sur Nicolas Cage après ses performances individuelles à succès). Et cette dimension humaniste du film se bat également avec l'égoïsme des scènes d'action, qui critiquent également la conception des Japonais comme une race maudite. En résumé, ni une action correcte comme dans Black Hawk Down, ni "quelque chose de plus" comme dans Saving Private Ryan. Quelqu'un n'a tout simplement pas su ce qu'il voulait filmer, ou l'a tout simplement massacré. (19/08/2002)

I'm pretty disappointed in this. Pretty much. The action doesn't have the bite that the other John Woo films have, Nicolas Cage doesn't really fit, and the story of Christian Slater and Roger Willie was much better and more emotional than the story of the main characters. If I wanted to compare it to Woo’s Hong Kong work, it would be even less so. As it is, it's a slightly above average war movie and a big step down in John Woo's career. (06/08/2002)

John Woo is a director of action films and clearly does not feel comfortable in any other genre. War, in his interpretation, lacks sufficient impact. The only problem, but a crucial one at that, is that he behaves as if he is shooting his next action masterpiece and tries to insert almost balletic scenes into the film, which then have no chance of appealing to me when it is because soldiers have just been killed. The brutal dose of detachment, characteristic of his previous works, seems plainly laughable here. When the main hero in The Killer or Hard Boiled stands against multiple adversaries, it is exaggerated but also stylish. But when Nicolas Cage charges into the trenches like an unguided missile in Windtalkers and starts mowing down enemies without suffering any injury, I can only shake my head. On top of that, the Japanese are portrayed as complete idiots here, popping out of hiding with their weapons lowered and their hands flailing, running directly in front of American cannons. The refined form and planes passing by the camera or a series of exploding tanks take your breath away. However, the content is desperately trivial. (08/07/2007)

Control question: I wonder, comrades, do you know why there weren't any white doves flying in slow motion? You don’t know, do you? Ha! Look, I’ll tell you exactly, comrades. Such feathers can’t withstand a flamethrower attack! Now you know, but as if you didn't. Otherwise, it’s political subversion and a military trial! Starring a brooding Indian nanny (by the way, it's one of Cage’s acting fails) and her ward, who gradually digs up the war axe on Saipan to split the peace pipe into tiny pieces. Although he didn’t go through training, the most adept codebreaker here turns out to be John Woo, because I still haven’t understood what it was supposed to be about. It wasn’t about passing information in Navajo-American slang on the Pacific battlefield. Is it a slightly pathetic drama about friendship and understanding amidst the chaos of war? Or is it about the inner demons of the white man and subsequent redemption? Or did the producer-pushed director create a pure action film in the style of John Wayne? In that overcooked action, all that was missing was Jean-Claude, arriving on a motorcycle with a funny nineties' hairstyle, kicking some butt on both fighting sides, and mistaking Cage's M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun strap for a rattlesnake, only to bite through it. (13/06/2022)

John Woo showed everyone what a proper patriotic and pro-American film should look like. Nicolas Cage (Enders) jumped from one foot to the other while shooting hundreds of Japanese soldiers, and then, while injured, he shot a few more soldiers about twenty feet away with just a pistol, without aiming. I could go on about things like this indefinitely. This was what frustrated me the most. Otherwise, the film turned out quite well. All the characters and their fates had something to them. Cage pleasantly surprised me with his performance. I must disagree with the notion that there isn’t much action in the film; I think there was plenty. James Horner's music added the right touch. However, it’s true that some of the dialogue scenes felt quite unnecessary and drawn out. The final shootout and its resolution surprised me a lot. Normally, I would have given this film four stars without much hesitation, but due to Enders' heroic yet unrealistic behavior, as well as that of the other marines, I have to take away that one star, and I give it 70% overall. (24/09/2016)