Flags of Our Fathers

Flags of Our Fathers (Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, John Benjamin Hickey, Barry Pepper) – When Clint Eastwood and Paul Haggis get together to direct and write a movie, Hollywood says Academy Award. They teamed for Best Picture Million Dollar Baby and each has won solo awards, Haggis for writing and directing Crash and Clint for Baby and Unforgiven.  The story of those who erected the flag on Iwo Jima, made famous by the 1944 “photograph heard round the world,” the movie reveals both surprises yet tells a familiar story of reluctant heroes worth more for their PR value than for their gallantry.  The surprises come mostly in the form of facts unknown to most of us.  For example, the flag was the replacement for the original one erected on the top of the mountain, and it was flown after the 5th day of a brutal battle that lasted for more than a month.  The film takes several pages from Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg’s epic saga of D-Day and its aftermath. Spielberg was an executive producer of this movie with Eastwood, and Clint tells the story as a flash-back interspersed with haunting memories of its somewhat undeserving heroes.  The performances are sterling by all of the unknowns, led by Adam Beach (Windtalkers) as the Native American whose memories of the battles drive him to drink just as he is feted as one of the three surviving serviceman who raised the flag.  The best known actor of the group is played by Barry Pepper (also a Canadian like Beach), who plays the “best Marine” of them all, but who dies in the battle.  The film is pure Eastwood, which means it includes a score he wrote.  It includes action and heartache, great big sets, giant casts, little stories, and blood and guts.  It is Oscar nomination worthy, but not as good as Private Ryan (which did not win Best Picture but won a slew of statues).  And it featured something I haven’t seen since Spielberg’s Schindler’s List – people who stayed around through the credits without a word.  It also opened in third place for the week, which might just indicate that Americans are finally tired of World War II movies 60+ years later.