Flags of Our Fathers Review

Flags of Our Fathers DVD Movie Review

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The story revolves around the famous World War II battle of Iwo Jima and the even more famous image of the soldiers raising the American flag. What you may not know is that the flag was actually raised twice, and the question over who deserved credit for the act comprises the central theme of the film.

Three soldiers are whisked back to the U.S., proclaimed heroes, and sent on a whirlwind tour to encourage Americans to buy war bonds. They are: John “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), a Navy medic, Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford), an ambitious young soldier who wants desperately to be a hero, and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), a Native American who is overwhelmed by the loss of his comrades and his lack of actual participation in the flag raising.

Based on a true story, Flags of Our Fathers certainly has an interesting premise. It’s one of those little known pieces of history that every American should know more about, as it gives an amazing insight into a culture’s need for heroes and the power of propaganda. However, a good movie needs more than just an interesting premise, and this one comes up short in almost every other area.

The filmmakers basically raided the cast of every war movie of the past decade. We get Barry Pepper (Saving Private Ryan), Neil McDonough (Band of Brothers), and Adam Beach (Windtalkers). Harve Presnell even does some of the film’s early narration. You may remember him as General Marshall in Saving Private Ryan, where he also did some narration work.

While it’s great to see these actors getting work, it also seems as though they were just thrown in there because audiences might remember their faces from a previous war film. I’m a little confused, though, on how that’s supposed to establish some kind of credibility. I mean, we’re talking motion pictures here, folks. It’s not like Barry Pepper is actually some kind of real-life master sharpshooter or anything. More than anything, it just comes off like lazy casting.

There’s a lot of that going around in Flags of Our Fathers. It often just seems like a bad imitation of Saving Private Ryan. Don’t believe me? Then watch the landing scene on the beach at Iwo Jima and tell me it doesn’t smack of Spielberg’s earlier depiction of Normandy Beach. Some of the shots are even close enough that it begins to strain Eastwood’s credibility as a director.

This is certainly not his finest moment. There are a few memorable images from the film, but most feel forced. Take, for example, a scene where the heroes are being served cake in the image of the flag raisers. Of course, it gets topped with a strawberry sauce, which is supposed to be symbolic of the soldiers being covered with blood. That’s pretty ham-handed imagery, if you ask me.

The film jumps around between the events at Iwo Jima and the public relations tour of the flag raisers. While this may have been necessary to preserve a certain amount of suspense, it unfortunately serves to dull the emotional impact of the battle scenes. The events just don’t seem as gut wrenching when they’re only shown for a few minutes at a time.

This emotional dullness runs throughout the course of the movie and extends over to the actors. While the latter stages of the movie are stronger in the acting department, most of the characters are underdeveloped or simply dull (Rene Gagnon is a prime example). Since you’re supposed to care about whether the soldiers live or die, failing to give them any personality only works to hamper the movie’s goals. In many way, I was reminded of another war picture, Black Hawk Down, where the soldiers are hard to tell apart on the field of battle and seem largely interchangeable.

Viewers also have a Lord of the Rings-like ending to look forward to. Just when you think it’s over, it keeps right on rolling. In this way, Eastwood seems to be emulating yet another war film, The Thin Red Line. Believe me, that’s not a good thing. Where many movies might throw up a paragraph or two at the end to tell what happened to each soldier after the war, we instead get to see it all played out over the last 30 minutes or so of the film. Viewers with a short attention span will literally be climbing the walls by the end of this one.

Overall, this film lacked the emotional impact that we’ve come to expect from a good war movie. While the subject matter was interesting, the acting and direction did it a disservice. It seemed more like a made-for-cable movie than a big screen epic. Here’s hoping that Letters from Iwo Jima (Eastwood’s follow-up film) is better. It couldn’t be much worse.

Grade: D

If you like this movie, you might also enjoy:

• Saving Private Ryan
• Black Hawk Down
• Windtalkers

You'll probably also enjoy reading our review of Stalingrad.

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