Windtalkers is a 2002 American war film directed and co-produced by John Woo, starring Nicolas Cage, Adam Beach, Peter Stormare, Noah Emmerich, Mark Ruffalo, and Christian Slater.

During World War II, US Marine corporal Joe Enders returns to active duty after having surviving on the Solomon Islands against the Imperial Japanese Army that killed his entire squad and wounded his left ear.

Yahzee and Whitehorse, childhood friends from the Navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct artillery fire.

Both Enders and Henderson resent their new assignments, and the Navajos also endure racial harassment by some of the white Marines, notably Private Chick.

Enders refuses and manages to carry Yahzee to safety as U.S. Navy planes arrive and bomb the Japanese positions.

In November 1998, it was announced United Artists would develop Windtalkers as a directorial vehicle for John Woo.

To portray the Marines in the film the producers recruited extras that were volunteers from Schofield Barracks Army Base, Hickam Air Force Base, Pearl Harbor Naval Station, and Kaneohe Marine Corps Air Station.

The film's release date was moved from November 9, 2001, to June 14, 2002, due to the September 11th terrorist attacks.

[7] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B+ on scale of A to F.[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, remarking that "the filmmakers have buried it beneath battlefield cliches, while centering the story on a white character played by Nicolas Cage".

[9] Robert Koehler of Variety called it "A powerful premise turned into a stubbornly flat, derivative war movie.

[11] The film was ranked number four on Careeraftermilitary.com's "10 Most Inaccurate Military Movies Ever Made" which also included The Patriot, The Hurt Locker, U-571, The Green Berets, Pearl Harbor, Battle of the Bulge, Red Tails, Enemy at the Gates and Flyboys on its list of falsified war movie productions.

Unfortunately, the studio wanted a John Wayne movie, just a typical American hero film with explosions every few minutes.