This movies takes place on Saipan during World War 2. Saipan was an island that Japanese was in control of and the United States went over there to try to gain control of it. Code talkers were sent over with the marines. These two code talkers Yahzee and Whitehorse sent coded messages back in forth through a radio to the United States. The messages directed battleships and aircrafts to bomb specific coordinates which were on the Saipan island.
Joe Enders was previously in the war a year before this, but was recovering in a U.S. hospital because of he was hit trying to save another marine. The incident made him off balanced and left him almost deaf in one ear. After cheating a hearing test, he was able to return back to active duty. His new assignment though was to protect one of the Navajo code talkers, Ben Yahzee.
The Japanese get a little farther ahead in warfare and the U.S. artilleries become misguided. They accidentally start firing at the marines. Yahzee's radio (the only one the marines carry) is destroyed when it's struck by an artillery shell. They continue to fire at the marines and the marines have no way of communicating now. Ben takes the issue into his own hands and decides to disquise himself as a Jap. and go behind enemy lines to confiscate their radio and tells U.S. artillery to seize fire and reposition the fire to where the Japanese are. Yahzee makes it back to headquarters.
Enders assignment is to protect Yahzee at all times but most importantly he must protect the code. It can not fall into enemy hands at anytime. If he sees a code talker being captured he must kill them. Unfourtnatley this does happen. Enders caught White Horse being beaten by a couple of Japs. and both him and White Horse were out of ammo. There was nothing else Enders could do besides let him get captured and let the code fall into enemies hands or kill White Horse along with the Japs. He ended up throwing a grenade at him. Since White Horse was a close friend to Yahzee, he held a grudge on Enders through out most of the rest of the movie.
Towards the end of the movie the group of marines is becoming smaller and they end up stuck in a minefield. Here they are ambushed but somehow find a way to keep fighting. They are out numbered at this point and the Japanese have them trapped at a ridge on a moutain. The last hope is to retrieve the radio that lays just feet away from them. Enders and Yahzee make their way towards the radio but continue to be shot at. Yahzee finally gets U.S. aircrafts to make their way in to help but it's too late for Enders. He gets shot in the chest and Yahzee in the leg. Enders carries Yahzee to safety while the planes come in and shoot the Japanese. Enders bleeds to death with Yahzee at his side.
I though this was a much better movie than I tought it would be. There was a lot of warfare and gore. Sometimes it felt painful seeing all the marines die. It had a good plotline though and told a great story of war. The ending was very sad. I really didn't think the main character would die. This movie was one of the best war movies I have seen.
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