CODE CRACKERS
by Don Larsson

One of the top secrets of World War II that has only come to light in recent years is how the Allies managed to stay on top of German activities, especially their submarine attacks, so readily. The answer lay in the Enigma machine - a pre-computer cipher machine that the Germans used to relay secret messages. Thanks to a captured machine, an intercepted weather book, and the "Wizards" of Bletchley Park (the decoding center north of London), much of German operations became transparent. But the interceptions were not perfect. The Germans kept changing the keys to the code - and there was always the human factor.

It is the human factor that is the key to Enigma, the recent Michael Apted film - these Wizards being an even more ill-assorted group of geeks and neurotics than the students of Hogwarts. One, Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott), has even gone through a nervous breakdown, sparked in large part from the breakup of his affair with glamorous Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows). Pressed back into service mainly "for show" to the government ministers, Jericho suddenly finds himself working to crack two enigmas - the new German key for the code machine and the question of what ever happened to Claire.

Scott is efficient in his role, Burrows is glamorous, Jeremy Northam is slyly sinister as a counter-espionage agent, and Kate Winslet brings her usual craft to the rather thankless role of Hester Wallace, Claire's plainer (when wearing her glasses!) roommate and fellow clerk. John Barry's lush score reminds one at times of James Bond, and there are hints of a Pynchonesque paranoia at times. Overall, though, the film smacks more of Masterpiece Theater set-piece than either a real thriller or an historical document.

More spies and codes abound in The Bourne Identity, Doug Liman's adaptation of the Robert Ludlum thriller, with Matt Damon as an amnesiac found drifting at sea, graced with two bullets holes and a Swiss bank account number. Hitching up, Man From U.N.C.L.E. style, with an innocent civilian (Franka Potente), Bourne seeks his identity, only to have to run for his life time after time.

The scenery is nicely filmed, the action scenes are intense, but nothing about this really adds up, including the attraction of Potente's character for Bourne. The screenwriters must have been suffering from amnesia as well. There is no clear reason for Julia Stiles to be in this film, and the "secret" of Bourne's identity is barely disclosed in a muddled way at the end, making the whole thing even more pointless. It's a pleasant ride if you don't think about it at all, but the fact that the film was made at all is the true enigma.

On the other side of the world from Bletchley Park in World War II, American forces were able to keep their own secrets from the Japanese by using Navajo troops speaking the code in their own language. In Windtalkers, a couple of white soldiers (Nicolas Cage and Christian Slater) are assigned to the "code talkers" to "protect the code" (i.e., make sure the Japanese do not take them alive). This is a particularly rough assignment for Cage, who is still suffering PST disorder from a harrowing battle in the Solomon Islands, and he is reluctant to get too close to his charge, Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach).

I was a bit reluctant to see this film, given Cage's more recent "nice guy" roles, and fearing that director John Woo would let his trademark stylized violence overwhelm the rest, but I was pleasantly surprised. There is plenty of violence indeed, but it is utterly in context - first in the Solomon Islands, then at the battle for Saipan. Woo has managed here to wed Hong Kong action to Hollywood genre and even evokes scenes from The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan, albeit to more plot point.

Cage has been one of the best actors around at conveying bottled pain, and he comes back to the style here, playing well off Beach's idealistic but increasingly embittered Indian counterpart. If James Horner once again recycles a few too many motifs here, he does do a nice job of incorporating Navajo elements in ways that are surprisingly moving. After the rather bloodless Enigma and the overwrought Bourne Identity, Windtalkers looks like one of the best films of the year.

©2002 Don Larsson
CineScene