Review of Flags of Our Fathers (2006) by ♥ Chani L — 03 Jul 2009

Looking at its impeccable pedigree, it's almost impossible to think less than great things about Flags of Our Fathers: It's based on a true story. Adapted by Oscar-winner Paul Haggis. Directed by another Oscar winner, Clint Eastwood. Produced by a third Oscar winner, Steven Spielberg, who has already mined this territory to great effect. And starring a hand-picked ensemble of talented young actors, including Ryan Philippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach among others. The film is practically engineered for both audience and award recognition as 2006 begins to wind down. So why, then, am I so ambivalent about it? Perhaps because the whole project seems so... calculated. Mind you, there are hundreds of war stories that probably deserve documentation more than those that have already been told. In fact, this one seems particularly ripe for exploration, especially given our current involvement in the Iraq conflict and the increasingly blurred lines between true heroism and heralding political agendas. But having seen Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and even classics like The Bridge On the River Kwai, there are far too many elements of this story that feel familiar. And even with Eastwood's expert hand at the helm, I cannot avoid feeling like this is the director's stopgap for the film that he really wants to make -- namely, the exploration of the Japanese experience in World War II that will soon be chronicled in Letters From Iwo Jima. In and of itself, this film has a fairly irresistible hook: What is the true story behind one of the most famous photographs in American history? The photo, as the marketing campaign reveals, is that of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima. The story, as Haggis' screenplay reveals, is far more complicated than just the stuff of a random press picture casually snapped from the front lines. Ryan Philippe (Crash) plays John "Doc" Bradley, a naval medic who becomes an overnight hero when he helps raise the flag on the third day of the Iwo Jima invasion. Aided by Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), Bradley is relieved of duty and assigned a different responsibility by the military -- to help sell war bonds to American civilians.

Championed as heroes and paraded across the country for a public eager to support their troops, the three men begin to question how much they actually did while on the battlefield. But as the pressure continues to weigh more heavily on their consciences, and a flood of memories remind them of their fallen comrades, they start to wonder: What does it truly mean to be a hero, and what if despite all of the parades and press and publicity, one cannot live up to that? The nearest visual predecessor for Flags is Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, with which it shares the same mournful tone and an expert, but unshowy, directorial style. Unfortunately, the story itself does not possess the same streamlined intensity, forgoing Spielberg's comparatively straightforward flashback framework for a more complicated, and ultimately, confusing narrative that leaps back and forth through time while adding emotional dimension to the characters' travails. Screenwriter Haggis, almost all of whose film work thus far features voiceover accompaniment and some sort of labored structure, fails to justify the movie's convoluted mix of present-day moments, memories and recollections, creating an atmosphere of ambiguity that eventually extends to the emotional core of the main characters.