Review of Flags of Our Fathers (2006) by Taylor B — 13 Nov 2009

Eastwood is an interesting director and this is an interesting story, it works but not to a note-worthy state. The director is quite good, but his chaotic war sequences are nothing compared to "Saving Private Ryan".

Seriously, there is no point to doing it after Ryan, Speilberg perfectly captured the pure choas, fear and carnage of war and Eastwood does little with it. The reason why I bring it up is because Eastwood spends alot of time in these sequences, so I assume that he is trying to create that feel but can't.

In the way of acting, all of the performances while played be small name-actors, are good and help give the film an extra boost. However, like any non-perfect war film, Flags of Our Fathers refuses to end itself.

It keeps going on and on, any scenes of the last 15 minutes could have worked for the ending but it seems to be full of itself, thinking that it's a glorious war film with the makings of a classic, which it isn't.

It's interesting that said and I was really captured by the story of it, but it's in an over-crowded genre that is filled with winners and this one, while alright, is nothing worth standing-out.