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Movie Review by:
Jim "Good Old JR:" Rutkowski |
Directed by:
Clint Eastwood |
Written by:
William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, Adapted from Ron
Power's book "Flags of Our Fathers" |
Starring:
Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach |
Running time:
131 minutes
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Released:
10/20/06 |
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Rated R
for sequences of graphic war violence and
carnage, and for language. |
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"It's about heroes, and how a
country can need them so badly that it simply manufactures them." |
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Fall has arrived, and with it, the cinematic equivalent of a
breath of fresh air. These last few weeks have seen a major up tick in the
quality of movie product. After a summer of superheroes, pirates and animated
livestock, it is a tremendous relief to see all these well written, and personal
films being released. I’ve seen so many terrific films in the last couple of
weeks that my faith has been restored in Hollywood. You’ll be seeing some high
marks from me over the next few weeks (I’ve seen six movies in the last two
weeks so I’m a bit back logged). I’m not one to give four stars that easily. But
you’ll be seeing quite a few of them from me in the near future. You may ask
yourself, “has good ol’ JR gone THAT soft?” No, my friends, the movies have
become THAT good. On with the show.
As a director, Clint Eastwood has made several good films,
but just two great ones. Flags of Our Fathers, his latest,
does for World War II combat movies what Unforgiven did for
the Western. It strips the genre of some of its myth, makes
its violence immediate and in-your-face, and draws parallels
between events way back when and today. It's another great
movie, from a director who continues to go from strength to
strength. Because this is not just a vivid re-creation of an
epic battle, one of the bloodiest ever fought. It's about
symbols, and heroes, and how a country can need them so
badly that it simply manufactures them.
We've all seen that iconic image, five Marines and a Navy
corpsman raising the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima's Mount
Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945. It was just five days into a
bloody battle for a volcanic rock 5 miles long and 11/2
miles wide. It's a stirring image even now, as it was then,
in the last months of World War II.
Maybe we know that this "mission: accomplished" photo was a
bit premature, that the battle raged for another 31 days.
Maybe we've heard that the flag was raised twice that day,
or that the second raising was "staged." The story Eastwood
chose to tell is of those men, the real ones, the ones who
mistakenly got credit, the politics of financing a war, and
the survivor's guilt of men that a war-weary nation insisted
on embracing as "heroes" when they felt like nothing of the
sort.
Eastwood, using Iceland's black volcanic shores as a main
location, re-creates the horrific inch-by-inch slog through
carnage that was this battle, an attempt to seize a Japanese
home island as an emergency landing field for B-29 bombers.
Then he (and screenwriters William Broyles Jr. and Paul
Haggis) drop us into the fog of war. This is a muddled
history that came from a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, an
image that led to the survivors of that battle shipped home
to be feted, paraded and honored by a country that was
exhausted and nearly broke from years of total war. That's
where Flags finds its footing.
Jesse Bradford (Happy Endings) is Rene Gagnon, a Marine who
was a message runner during the battle, not the best
soldier, and an opportunist who tried to make the most out
of his accidental fame (his girlfriend back home was even
worse). "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) was a quiet Navy
corpsman (medic) haunted by the scores of wounded men he
could not save.
And Adam Beach of Windtalkers is Ira Hayes, a Pima Nation
American Indian stung by pervasive racism , a man so
troubled by what he went through and survivor's guilt that
his life after the parades -- and even during them -- was as
wrenching as the battlefield. Beach has the most emotive
role to play, a man given to drinking and weeping, and he
plays the heck out of it. His story was made famous in the
60's as the title character of a Johnny Cash song.
Eastwood deftly intercuts between three timelines -- the
battle and events leading up to it -- a dizzying war-bond
tour that came after it -- and the years of guilt and
remorse that followed. A modern-day son of the corpsman
pieces together the story from the battle's aged, reticent
survivors (the film is based on James Bradley's book).
It's a film shot in muted grays and olive drabs, where even
skin-tones fade like black-and-white images captured during
the war. Digital technology re-creates the landings, the
sweeping panorama of the battlefield, from the fleet that
landed the men, to the aircraft buzzing in to try and make
deadly, personal combat go more easily for the Marines
fighting their way from trench to tunnel. But to his credit,
the filmmaker didn't make this another Saving Private Ryan.
The combat takes up only about a quarter of the story.
And because it is a movie about flags and "symbols,"
Eastwood showcases those -- from "Gold Star" mothers of
fallen military men to an iconic statue based on the famous
photo. Symbols are why you need to stay to the very end of
the credits to get the full emotional impact of the movie.
Eastwood was also very astute in casting. David Patrick
Kelly, probably best known as Luther so long ago in The
Warriors, has aged into a perfectly acceptable Harry Truman.
Paul Walker and combat-film vet Barry Pepper (Saving Private
Ryan) make believable Marines.
If there's a flaw to Eastwood's approach, it's in his
reluctance to show anybody in a truly bad light. Rough edges
are buffed off most of the characters even as the cynicism
of politicians and the officer class are derided.
Eastwood is finishing a second film now, Letters from Iwo
Jima, telling the story of the battle from the Japanese
perspective. But for now we just have one of the best movies
of the year, and one last history lesson from the "Greatest
Generation," not just about sacrifice and blood, but of
wariness. Symbols can be moving and powerful summations of
feelings. But they should never take the place of the truth. |
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FLAGS OF
OUR FATHERS ©
2006 Warner Bros. Pictures International.
All Rights Reserved
Review © 2009 Alternate Reality, Inc.
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