Nicolas Cage's Underseen 2002 War Movie Was Directed By A Living Action Legend
by Jeremy Smith · /FilmJohn Woo just wasn't made for Hollywood, but that didn't stop him from directing some magnificent Hollywood movies. The Hong Kong filmmaker maestro, who redefined action cinema with such classics as "The Killer," "Bullet in the Head," and "Hard Boiled," played fast and loose and bloody — too bloody for American studios' tastes.
Hollywood doesn't always think these things through. On one hand, studios are desperate to make a box office killing by importing international talent with dazzlingly original sensibilities. Then they get these artists stateside and homogenize the heck out of their work, so much so that they might as well have hired a hack to do the job the shopworn American way.
Woo's transition was an interesting case because his action aesthetic is heavily informed by the entirety of American cinema. The man adores Hollywood. Obviously, he's clearly inspired by Westerns and gangster flicks, but he composes his gunfights with a light-fantastic èlan that's closer to Fred Astaire than Sam Peckinpah. Though he could do Peckinpah's elegiac bloodshed, too.
Hollywood wanted Woo, but they didn't want Woo to be too Woo. They wanted to water down his violence while getting him to make the studios' constellation of stars to look as cool as Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. They got the sartorial style and boldly heroic poses every time out, but only twice did the studios allow him to orchestrate a cathartic bloodbath on his own terms.
While I enjoyed the director's first two Hollywood movies ("Hard Target" and "Broken Arrow"), we didn't get the true Woo until he unleashed the bizarro "Face/Off." Had Woo finally figured out Hollywood? He gave it another go by re-teaming with "Face/Off" star Nicolas Cage for the ambitious World War II action epic "Windtalkers." But this time, he rolled snake eyes.
John Woo's Windtalkers has a director's cut worth seeking out
Before tackling "Windtalkers," John Woo succumbed to the siren song of tentpole franchise filmmaking and brought "Mission: Impossible II" crashing into shore. Granted, it was a commercial hit (grossing $546 million at the box office against a $125 million budget), but critics and moviegoers were down on the sequel, while Woo fans were disappointed with its silly set pieces.
Woo was still an A-list director after that and had the clout to get MGM to spend $115 million for a bounce-back WWII film about the infuriatingly under-discussed heroism of the Navajo Marines who created an uncrackable code (thus helping to turn the tide in the bloody Battle of Iwo Jima). Nicolas Cage was red-hot at the time, particularly in an action movie, which made "Windtalkers" seem like a wise investment.
It wasn't a harmonious shoot. Woo wanted to explore his pet themes of friendship and honor in a sprawling, thoughtful fashion, but MGM wanted a rah-rah John Wayne flag-waver. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "Windtalkers" was delayed from November 2001 to June 2002, by which point 20 minutes had been cut out of it. The film bombed financially (grossing $78 million globally), while reviews were mostly negative — though Salon's perspicacious Stephanie Zacharak called it Woo's best American film. It has its defenders, and, best of all, a 153 director's cut that makes a strong case for the war movie's greatness (and is well worth your time).
The film's biggest misstep is that it turns Indigenous American actors Adam Beach and Robert Willie's characters, Private Yahzee and Private Whitehorse, into supporting players. Obviously, MGM wasn't shelling out $115 million for a war film without major stars in the lead, and all you can say is that this stinks.