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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Joe Enders (Nicolas Cage), the Marine hero in John Woo's square but emotionally satisfying Second World War film, "Windtalkers," is not a temperate guy in the style of, say, Tom Hanks's Army officer in "Saving Private Ryan"--an ordinary man who steels himself for war. Joe is steely to begin with, a natural fighter, a war lover even, morose, relentless, at home amid the pain of battle. In a chaotic prologue set in the Solomon Islands, Joe follows orders and refuses to abandon a hopeless position as his friends in the outfit get killed. When we see him after the battle, resting in a hospital, his hearing is shot, and he has guilty hallucinations--he's "a mess," as an adoring nurse (Frances O'Connor) tells him. We understand that Joe will never fully recover from his wounds, that he's so remorseful he doesn't want to recover. Still, with the nurse's help, he fakes his way through medical tests and gets back into the war. Nicolas Cage, never one to do anything halfway, plays this hard-bitten and distant man with a deep-scarred melancholy. His sardonic performance is reminiscent (spiritually, not physically) of Robert Mitchum's work as the fatalistic Army captain in the classic "The Story of G.I. Joe" (1945). Ciphers, perhaps, in civilian...
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