Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe, John Slattery, Neal McDonough, Barry Pepper, John Benjamin Hickey, Judith Ivey, Robert Patrick, Jamie Bell, Tom McCarthy, Melanie Lynskey, Harve Presnell, George Grizzard, Anne Dowd, Paul Walker. [R]

The United States public relations machine arranges an extended nationwide war bond-promotional tour for a trio of servicemen (two Marines and a Navy corpsman played by Bradford, Beach, and Phillippe) commemorated as heroes for taking part in the raising of the flag on the island of Iwo Jima, as captured in the famous wartime photograph. But the three men have conflicted feelings on the truth, their duty, their experiences, and the perception of them as American heroes. Eastwood prefers a grim, stark look for the combat scenes, drained of so much color that sometimes only the red and blue of the flag burns through; they’re well-staged and harrowing, but the sense of position, strategy, and the identities of the soldiers scurrying around frequently get obscured. The stateside scenes are a mixed bag—well-intentioned but repetitive and sometimes inert—and the fractured chronology and muddled script don’t do any favors to its message on heroism. That these events are all told through flashback from near-present day involving a handful of vets and one of their sons only makes its honorable mission statement all the more obvious yet diluted, and the last twenty minutes or so really start to drag. Released shortly before its companion film from the same year, Letters from Iwo Jima. Co-produced by Steven Spielberg.

49/100