A warning to readers: This review reveals much of the plot of the film Windtalkers, which opens this weekend. W orld War II movies have become Hollywood's warhorses -- big, hulking moneymakers that run roughshod over emotions. John Woo's Windtalkers is no exception. Larded with war-movie clichés, tubs of gore and body parts, and multiple, unabashed grabs for the heartstrings, Windtalkers is a familiar, if harrowing, viewing experience. Underlying the bloody schlock, however, is a countercurrent that charges many Woo movies: an ultimately moving story about the hard, gritty love between men who have put each other through hell, and saved each other from it. The movie draws on an intriguing part of U.S. history: During World War II, some 400 Navajo were recruited to transmit messages through a code based on their language, which Japanese forces never succeeded in breaking. The use of the Navajo code and the role of the codetalkers was declassified in the 1960s; in 1992, the government...