WINDTALKERS(***)

starring Nicholas Cage, Adam Beach, Christian Slater
directed by John Woo

WALLY: Windtalkers? This should have been Windsuckers. I bet that's the next porn name to come out. Cum out. Get it.

WALDO: Windtalkers is an expensive, delayed and slightly disappointing movie about an American soldier assigned to protect the secret Navajo code used in World War II. In essence, if a Navajo code talker is going to be captured the personal protectors, played by Cage and Slater, must kill him. I say slightly disappointing because there's plenty for action fans but the story revolved around the Navajo and Cage and it never really found the depth or heart needed to draw us into their relationship.

WALLY: But there was plenty of blood, guts and gore. Hands getting chopped off, bodies getting blow to bit. Yeah. It was like Braveheart in WWII.

WALDO: The action follows the arc of the U.S. assaulting the Japanese Island of Saipan. Cage is a reluctant protector. Early in the film his entire squad was cut down because he demanded to obey orders. Thus we enter the 'should I obey orders again' guilt dilemma he faces throughout the movie. His sense of duty is compromised as he and his Navajo grow closer due to some buddy moments and other straight up 'he saved my life' moments.

WALLY: Relationship-shmationship. You don't go to Woo movie fo rewationship. You go to see buwets and peoper shooting as eachozer.

WALDO: Is that your Chinese impression or your Elmer Fudd impression?

WALLY: Fwuck you round eye. My point is that if you're expecting Platoon this is not it. This is more of a battle eye-candy movie. If you go expecting some deep dramatic message then you biting down on wrong egg-roll G.I.

WALDO: That's my problem. With so many war movies coming out the comparisons are inevitable and this one is around the middle of the pack. It didn't suck but it's no Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan. Private Ryan had a much better story and, sorry to all you Woo aficionados, but more apropos direction given the material. The hallowed beginning of Private Ryan is not unlike the beginning Saipan assault of Windtalkers but the later just didn't seem as intense. I think it was partly due to the fact that Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kiminski chose to shoot much of the action with the camera either behind the troops or from directly in front. Thus, you get a sense of forward movement and motivation. In contrast, Windtalkers shot much of the battle from the side, not unlike Braveheart, but you weren't emotionally invested like Braveheart and you didn't get the sense of direction as you did in Private Ryan.

WALLY: Dude, I think you're taking this battle analysis way too seriously. Can't you watch guys getting their nutsack blow fifty feet away and just enjoy it?

WALDO: Don't mess with my war movies, bucko. Violence for violence sake doesn't turn me on. I am a fan of Woo's ultra-violent Hong Kong movies but even those were imbued with a sense of relationship drama. This seemed to lack personal stake.

WALLY: Speaking of steak, all this talk of Japanese makes me hungry.

WALDO: I could go for a California roll.

WALLY: That's what she said.

WALLY/WALDO: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA…..ahem.

WALDO: Another problem I had was with the choice of direction which actually surprised me considering Woo's sense of visual style. The war scenes were shot from a third person perspective rather than, in my humble opinion, the more effective and recently more lauded first person.

WALLY: Uh…who's on first?

WALDO: It's like a video game. The games where you shoot from left to right aren't as engrossing as the recent spate of video games where you are the main character like Doom, Duke Nuke' Em, Castle Wolfenstien and some of the Star Wars games.

WALLY: By your choice of titles, I can see you haven't played video games in a few years. Too much porn.

WALDO: For example, Black Hawk Down was shot with the camera about eye level the entire movie so you felt like you were standing there as bullets flew by and Somali militia jumped out from nowhere.

WALLY: You mean skinnies.

WALDO: I refrained from calling them that because it's politically incorrect and insensitive.

WALLY: You know why they called them that? CUZ THEY WERE FUCKING SKINNY! That's what happens when Americans haven't done a benefit concert for you since USA for Africa. Selfish capitalists. Why Britney spears could feed a village for a week with those nice plump juggies.

WALDO: Only if they can live off of a week's supply of silicon.

WALDO/WALLY: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA…ahem.

WALLY: Besides, if someone's shooting at me, fuckem.

WALDO: So if you combine the distant camera work with the mundane script and the lack of emotional resonance, you're left with a lot of explosions and dead bodies.

WALLY: In other words, Afghanistan.

WALDO: I won't even mention the clichés from the cigar smoking army cook to when a soldier's buddy got shot he'd yell "you son of a bitch" and start shooting at the Japs.

WALLY: You just mentioned it. My favorite part was when Nic Cage was wounded, on his back, crawling away and he fires three random shots into a crowd of Japanese soldiers and like eight of them fall down. Almost as good a shot as Schwarzegger in Commando. "Can you smell them down wind…I did."

WALDO: If Woo would have imbued his sense of deep emotion from his Hong Kong characters into this movie we'd have something but it seemed to be missing.

WALLY: Ok Waldo. Who's the one who directed The Killer and Face/Off? That's what I thought. Woo is God. So shut the fuck up. I thought the Indian dude smiled too much. It's like, you're in a fucking bloody war. Why the hell are you smiling?

WALDO: If Hollywood had any balls then this movie would have centered around the Navajo guy and the tension he feels as he figures out that if he gets into too much trouble then his own men will shoot him.

WALLY: I agree that this story belonged to the Navajo and should have been told from their perspective but, who the hell's gonna see a movie about chief wigwam.

WALDO: That's terrible.

WALLY: I know. But I'm right. You need a star to carry a $110 million movie.

WALDO: If you don't need too much depth to your war movies then you might enjoy this. But Black Hawk Down, Private Ryan and Platoon it's not.

WALLY: All I have to say is no sex or nudity but lots of body parts. Just not our favorite ones.

INSIDE THE KILL BOX: THE GULF WAR
(Discovery Channel)

WALDO: While we're talking about war let's talk about an excellent show we saw on the Discovery Channel about the Gulf War. INSIDE THE KILL BOX recounts the military tactics, strategy and soldier accounts of the assault on Saddam's army in the Gulf War.

WALLY: This was awesome! Right off the bat I'd have to say this documentary features the best live battle footage I've ever seen. And I've see a lot of it. Most of what we remember from the Gulf War is those grainy night vision images seeing bombs blow stuff up. But this has more. There are a lot of images of tanks, planes and choppers unleashing, bombs, cluster bombs, missiles and everything else we got on those poor Iraqi kwackies.

WALDO: A fascinating aspect was how they talked about the strategy of the attack. They discussed how the marines and navy faked an amphibious assault while Schwartzkopf lined forces up on the undefended Iraqi flank for the "hail mary" maneuver, around the side to attack Saddam's Republican Guard from the rear.

WALLY: And the strategy was visualized through computer renderings of tank formations and troop movements. It gave us a cool, clear view of where the armies were and the weapons that were used. But I gotta go back to that live footage of tanks blasting Iraqi tanks. F18's bombing Iraqi troop positions and Apache choppers pounding Iraqi tank formations. It was an awesome display of weaponry.

WALDO: If you're a military buff this is definite must see. Not only does it give you the war strategy with the interviews to give it a personal touch but the battlefield images are the best I've ever seen of a real live war.