Flags of Our Fathers Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 19th, 2006
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
"If you can get a picture -- the right picture -- it can win a war," a captain (Harve Presnell) tells the son of one of the participants in the most famous World War II photograph. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, an unusual story about the raising of the famous flag on Iwo Jima, is directed awkwardly but ultimately effectively by Clint Eastwood.
Cutting back and forth in time, the movie is confusing and slackly paced at first, but it eventually gains its footing. One of Eastwood's least satisfying films, it finally works more because of the power of the story itself than the quality of the filmmaking.
This story has two equally interesting parts. The more traditional of the two involves the hellacious fighting, as American troops fight 12,000 well-entrenched Japanese troops, who wanted to fight to their death on Iwo Jima. The second and more intriguing part concerns how the famous picture came to be taken and what happened afterwards to the soldiers in the photograph.
The battle sequences are done with horrific realism, but the amount of spilled guts and severed heads is nowhere as intense as in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, a film that set the gold standard for World War II gore. What the battle scenes in FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS do especially well is contrast the many boring moments on the battlefield, when it looks like the enemy is dead and the battle over, with bloody firefights which occur before, during and after these moments of false calm.
I especially liked the roar of the large naval guns as they pounded away, attempting to pulverize the island before the troops go ashore. My dad, who served in World War II and who was with me at the screening, liked everything about the movie, except the noise of the guns. He said that it hurt his ears. Personally, I wished that they had been even louder still, which would have been even more realistic.
The best part of the narrative concerns the placement of the two -- yes, two -- flags over the island. The people who put up the first flag were basically forgotten as the photographer of the famous photograph actually shot an image of a second and different group of soldiers putting up a replacement flag, since someone wanted to take the first flag home as a souvenir.
Of the soldiers who raised the flag several were killed minutes later, although each of the flag raisings occurred during a lull in the battle. The three that lived, Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), were quickly whisked back home so that the military could crack up a PR effort to sell bonds. We learn that the U.S. was just about busted financially and had almost no money to pay for more munitions. The war bond drives had become ineffective, but the American public were absolutely captivated by the heroes of Iwo Jima, as personified in the people in the photo, and were more than willing to buy bonds if these men asked.
The irony is that the guys were shy and only one of three, Doc Bradley, was actually a hero. Rene Gagnon was referred to as their unit's Tyrone Power and was viewed as capable only as a gofer or a runner. He didn't fight. He just carried stuff around, like the flag. By far the saddest character was Ira Hayes, an American Indian and a blubbering alcoholic whose behavior finally got him sent back to the front to get rid of him. Nevertheless, these three were quite effective in the necessary efforts to sell the bonds, performing in front of large crowds, where they would enact the events, as fireworks lit the sky. The spectacles embarrassed them, but they stayed with it for their country's sake.
In a long epilogue, perhaps a little too long, we find out what happened to the three. Suffice it to say that, of all of the bigwigs who promised them whatever they wanted when the war was over, none of these rich and powerful men made good on their promises to the soldiers.
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS runs 2:12. It is rated R for "sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 20, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
