The Answer, My Friends
Jun. 18th, 2002 07:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bryantWindtalkers was pretty solid. I went about half an hour thinking "Wow, beautiful John Woo directing, but I'm not getting emotionally involved." Then I got emotionally involved.
It's the most Woo-like of his US movies, or at least that's how you'll feel if you're a fan of him from the Hong Kong days. I'm not talking about the violent gunfights of The Killer, here; I'm talking the complex painful emotions of Bullet Through The Head. Once again, we see Woo exploring the nature of loyalty and duty and friendship -- something missing from the otherwise excellent Face/Off. In Windtalkers, he has a script that lends itself to his core concerns and a budget that allows him to explore them.
The actors are up to the task. Nicholas Cage has returned from overacting hell. Christian Slater is nicely understated. I'd have expected any movie featuring both of them to be way over the top; this wasn't. Adam Beach and particularly Roger Willie, as the two Navajo code talkers, hold their own. I'm particularly impressed with Willie, who'd never acted before.
In some ways, Windtalkers reminded me of a John Wayne movie. There's no question here whether the US should be fighting; the shots and the stereotypes are from ever war flick you ever saw as a kid. ("So, what are you going to do after the war?") But Woo's added a layer of moral ambiguity -- not to the question of war's necessity -- but to the question of what men will do to win a war.
Recommended.
It's the most Woo-like of his US movies, or at least that's how you'll feel if you're a fan of him from the Hong Kong days. I'm not talking about the violent gunfights of The Killer, here; I'm talking the complex painful emotions of Bullet Through The Head. Once again, we see Woo exploring the nature of loyalty and duty and friendship -- something missing from the otherwise excellent Face/Off. In Windtalkers, he has a script that lends itself to his core concerns and a budget that allows him to explore them.
The actors are up to the task. Nicholas Cage has returned from overacting hell. Christian Slater is nicely understated. I'd have expected any movie featuring both of them to be way over the top; this wasn't. Adam Beach and particularly Roger Willie, as the two Navajo code talkers, hold their own. I'm particularly impressed with Willie, who'd never acted before.
In some ways, Windtalkers reminded me of a John Wayne movie. There's no question here whether the US should be fighting; the shots and the stereotypes are from ever war flick you ever saw as a kid. ("So, what are you going to do after the war?") But Woo's added a layer of moral ambiguity -- not to the question of war's necessity -- but to the question of what men will do to win a war.
Recommended.
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(t.rev)
Date: 2002-06-18 08:06 pm (UTC)Re: (t.rev)
Date: 2002-06-18 08:39 pm (UTC)(Ok, that was *totally* irrelevant, but I haven't seen Windtalkers.)
no subject
Date: 2002-06-19 03:39 pm (UTC)Thanks for the review!