| Director | John Woo |
|---|---|
| Budget | $115 million |
| Box office | $76.7 million |
During World War II, US Marine corporal Joe Enders returns to active duty after surviving on the Solomon Islands against the Imperial Japanese Army that killed his entire squad and wounded his left ear. Enders and Sgt. Pete "Ox" Henderson receive new assignments to protect Navajo code talkers Pvt. Ben Yahzee and Pvt. Charlie Whitehorse in a JASCO.
Yahzee and Whitehorse, childhood friends from the Navajo tribe, are trained to send and receive coded messages that direct artillery fire. Enders and Henderson are instructed to kill their code talkers if capture is imminent so the code cannot fall into enemy hands. Both Enders and Henderson resent their new assignments, and the Navajos also endure racial harassment by some of the white Marines, notably Private Chick.
Yahzee and Whitehorse take part in the invasion of Saipan in the Mariana Islands. After the beachhead is secured, the Marines come under friendly fire from U.S. artillery. With Yahzee's radio destroyed and the convoy unable to call off the bombardment, Yahzee suggests disguising himself as a Japanese soldier and slipping behind enemy lines to commandeer a radio, with Enders as his prisoner. Yahzee redirects artillery fire onto the Japanese position.
That night, the Marines camp in the nearby village of Tanapag. As Yahzee is temporarily reassigned to the command post to translate a code, Enders becomes increasingly conflicted about killing Yahzee versus following his orders, but his request to be relieved of duty is denied. The next morning, Japanese soldiers ambush the village. Henderson is killed, and Whitehorse is on the verge of capture. Realizing that the Japanese will torture him for the code, Enders throws a grenade at Whitehorse, killing him and his captors. Yahzee returns to Tanapag and, upon seeing Whitehorse's body, confronts Enders, revealing that he was the one who killed Whitehorse. An outraged Yahzee points his weapon at Enders but cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. Later, Enders confesses that he hated having to kill Whitehorse and that, like Henderson, his mission was to protect the code above all else.
The Marines face another mission, ambushed near a minefield on Mount Tapochau. Enders, Yahzee, Chick, and Cpl. Pappas take cover on a ridge, witnessing Japanese artillery fire on a Marine convoy below. Enraged over Whitehorse's death, Yahzee charges the Japanese line, leading to both he and Enders being shot while calling in an airstrike. Fearing capture and torture for the code, Yahzee pleads for Enders to kill him, but Enders refuses, carrying him to safety as Navy planes bomb the Japanese positions. Despite this, Enders is mortally wounded and dies.
Back in the U.S., Yahzee and his family sit atop Point Mesa in Monument Valley, Arizona, and, wearing the sacred necklaces and Navajo ceremonial dress, perform the Navajo ritual of paying their respects to Enders.