Review: Flags of Our Fathers -- James' Take
Filed under: Action, Drama, Warner Brothers, Theatrical Reviews, Dreamworks, Oscar Watch
Flags of Our Fathers, the newest film from Clint Eastwood, is a great demonstration of the fact that good intentions don't necessarily mean good moviemaking. James Bradley and Ron Powers' book told the story of the six men who made for one the most memorable human images of World War II -- the famous photo of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima -- and contrasted the battle for Mt. Suribachi with the hero-making that came after, as the three surviving soldiers were sent on a colossal bond drive to help finance the war effort. As John Slattery's natty, chatty Treasury man puts it to the servicemen, Marines Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) and Navy Corpsman John 'Doc' Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), "You fought for a mountain in the Pacific; now you'll fight for a mountain of cash." War is hell, and so is selling it.
I'm as tired of "The Greatest Generation" hero worship as the next person who isn't Tom Brokaw, but that's not at the heart of why I was so unmoved by Flags of Our Fathers. The problem with this film is not the story of Iwo Jima; Bradley and Powers' book is fascinating and rich. It's not Eastwood's direction, which is as artistically stately and technically accomplished as you might hope. The problem with Flags of Our Fathers -- driven through every moment in the film as decisively and fatally as a stake through the heart -- is the scripting of Paul Haggis. Haggis adapted Million Dollar Baby for Eastwood and then went on to co-write and direct Crash. Haggis has never met a familiar cliché or a rousing 'big moment' he didn't like, and Flags of Our Fathers is dripping with them. As the three men appear at a bond rally in Chicago, flashbulbs lead to flashbacks; as the photo hits the press, newsboys sell papers that come hurled off the back of trucks in bundles; a mother, convinced that her son appears uncredited in the Iwo Jima photo, swats away the suggestion she's mistaken: "Oh, that's Harlon ... I changed his diapers. ..."
And considering that Million Dollar Baby was hamstrung by a similar obviousness, it's easy to lay blame at Haggis' feet. Eastwood isn't blameless in this -- just as in Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers has an Eastwood-composed score that moans with sad saxophones and sweeps with strings. It's the kind of film where, if the audience were to be unsure of how they might be feeling at any point during the film, the music rolls off the screen to take you by the hand and tell you precisely the emotional state you should be in -- if the two separate narrators haven't already.
But while Eastwood takes the blame for not rejecting Haggis' script -- or, more accurately, for hiring Haggis to re-write the draft Steven Spielberg commissioned from William Broyles, Jr. -- there are moments in Flags that are so overdone they make the average high school play look like a model of tasteful minimalism. During the bond drive, the surviving soldiers are honored at dinner after dinner; at one, the dessert course is a vanilla ice-cream replica of the flag-raising. As the server approaches with the sauce options --- strawberry or chocolate -- and Ryan Phillipe selects the first, the dripping, flowing red sauce brings back memories of the blood of battle. ...
And that's a shame, because there are fascinating little moments scattered all through Flags of Our Fathers -- from Jon Polito's brief, pop-eyed turn as New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to the startling and old-fashioned suggestion that, maybe, fighting a war should involve commitment and sacrifice from the broadest possible swath of society and be paid for while it's happening, not buried on page A24 in the daily news and financed from the national debt. And -- to be frank -- watching any war movie while we are, in fact, at war is a bit uneasy. Do the scenes of the beach landings at Iwo Jima feel unsatisfying because they recreate executive producer Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan so closely, or do they feel unsatisfying because they're expensive and phony in an era when the reality of war is as close (and yet as curiously far away) as any newspaper or cable channel?
In the age of effects, you can make any war story by just throwing money at it; the machinery of war is as easy to fake (and as fake) as King Kong or imperial Rome. And as a human story, Flags of Our Fathers is a bust -- undermined at every turn by taking the easy way out. Adam Beach's Ira Hayes is given nothing to do but drink, cry and rage against war; Jesse Bradford's Rene Gagnon easy slump into hero status isn't explored, and Phillipe, as Corpsman Bradley, is reduced to looking serious under furrowed brows as a substitute for character.
Flags of Our Fathers slavishly emulates Saving Private Ryan, and is being positioned for the same kind of Oscar glory; that alone, to my mind, is not enough to suggest the film deserves it. A significant part of Flags of Our Fathers focuses on the question of if the photo was, in fact, staged; it wasn't, and the circumstances of the two separate flag-raisings (the second of which was captured by Joe Rosenthal for the now-famous photo) are explained in minute detail. The better question raised by Flags of Our Fathers is this: How can you take such a real and compelling story and turn it into such a fake and tired movie? Eastwood has finished a second film telling the Iwo Jima story from side of the Japanese troops, Letters from Iwo Jima. I find myself looking forward to that film not because it suggests an ambition and curiosity so much big studio moviemaking lacks (although that's a factor, certainly). After Flags of Our Fathers -- with its gingham-clad moms, plucky paperboys, tough-talking dogfaces and flashbacks served for dessert -- I find myself looking forward to Letters From Iwo Jima primarily because it's not written by Paul Haggis.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-20-2006 @ 3:19PM
Jake said...
Clint Eastwood is the director of the movie? Or producer? I hear about this film first time
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10-20-2006 @ 4:03PM
joe schmooga said...
Gee....another critic who abhores moviemaking; how novel....
After visiting over 30+ countries on this planet, I've yet to see a statue erected to a critic.....puzzling, huh?
mrfungo
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10-20-2006 @ 5:21PM
Daniel W. said...
But movie critics save people huge amounts of money every year by telling us which movies suck. That is their job.
To be a film critic, you have to love good movies and hate bad movies. You cannot be indifferent, apathetic, or worst of all, wavering. Do you want every film critic to point out only the positives? if they did that, you would waste your money and time on garbage instead of seeing films that are truly worth your time and money.
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10-20-2006 @ 5:27PM
James Rocchi said...
Actually, our own Richard Von Busack wrote eariler in the year about how, yes, there is a statue to a critic. Richard actually points out two. (And there's got to be a statue of George Orwell somewhere -- maybe a bust in a dusty hall. ...)
http://www.cinematical.com/2006/08/15/nobody-ever-put-up-a-statue-to-a-critic/
And that aside, I love moviemaking.
J.
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10-20-2006 @ 7:55PM
Kim Voynar said...
Joe -
Actually, most of the critics I know love movies and filmmaking. What we abhor is bad films.
Critics exist to give their opinion on whatever subject they write about. We don't write about film to tell you want you should think; we write what we think, and you can either use that information or not, as you so choose. It's up to you as the reader to determine which critics speak to you and which don't, or to not read them at all.
There are critics I read because their opinion tends to mirror my own, some I read because I admire their writing even if I don't tend to agree with them, and those I avoid like the plague.
As for statues being the arbiter of a person's worth, I'd question the premise of the implied assumption that the existence of a statue in tribute to a person (or group of people) is at all indicative of their worth as people or contribution to society.
Nonetheless, I can think of lots of people who shouldn't have had statues of them who have: Kim Jong Il, Hitler, Stalin, Lenin ... I could go on. And I can think of way more people who have never (and likely will never) have a statue erected in their honor: Teachers, social workers, emergency room doctors, pediatric cancer nurses, good foster parents ... I could go on about that too.
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10-20-2006 @ 8:20PM
ed said...
Just got back from watching the movie. Like the previous review of Flags I too noted that the editing is not that great and the end really drags on. The only thing that made me sit through the last ten minutes was the respect for the men and wanting to know their whole stories. Visually the battle scenes were satisfying but the scenes where the camera takes a first person point of view muddling through the waves seems to have been just stuck in there for the hell of it. At the end of the movie both me and my friend were struggling to remember the names of everyone and trying to figure out which old guy was who back then. Does anybody know if Clint is planning on showing the Japanese perspective of Iwo Jima in the US? and if so would they keep the Japanese language?
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10-20-2006 @ 9:16PM
Fred Harwell said...
After this critic calls two MARINES and one Sailor "soldiers, you can be sure he has no idea what he is talking about...hehe
by the way, Semper FI, Ya'll
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10-21-2006 @ 1:28PM
Bill K. said...
I read Rocchi's review after seeing the film. I have to say that I went to see Flags with the intention of loving it. I am still a fan of the Greatest Generation and am glad Hollywood is giving them a more realistic representation 60 years later. I am also a huge fan of Clint Eastwood's direction. However, this film left me sometimes confused.
As with one of the above comments, I found myself straining at the end to try and figure out which character was which. I don't mind having to think a little at a film. My problem here is that, with all of it being told by flashbacks, and with the characters within those flashbacks being covered with blood and mud and darkenss, it was difficult to figure out who was who at various points.
The only name I remember from my childhood in the 60's, when hearing stories from my mother of the flag raisers, was Ira Hayes. I, too, found that we didn't get much of a depth of character here... not much of who the man was. Perhaps because the story was told to us by a man (the son of "Doc")who only heard the stories from someone else, it is hard to get the real picture of the men.
I have to agree whith Rocchi's comments on the cliches throughout the film. I cringed at the line, "...I changed his diapers..." and cringed comes nowhere close to what I felt when I saw the strawberry syrup on the ice cream statue in one of the dinner scenes.
Over all, I'm glad I saw the film and am glad they told the story. But I must agree with much of what Rocchi says about the film.
On a final note, a highlight for me was one of the scenes towards the end when a family stops their car in a field and the father poses them all around Ira Hayes for a photo. Again, perhaps a cliche way of depicting the situation, but the father, played by actor Steven Porter, is always a breat of fresh air. I've seen him over the years in small roles on sitcoms and commercials. He played the Ref in the final fight scene for Clint in Million Dollar Baby. I wish we could see more of this guy.
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10-21-2006 @ 9:59PM
Dwight said...
OK I have always said that to know if a movie is good just listen to the critics if they say its a bad movie than for sure it going to be a good movie. If they say that its a good movie you really have to wonder. look at movies like my left foot, the piano,and others
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10-22-2006 @ 9:12AM
Steve R said...
I'm so sick and tired of the media calling Marines "soldiers." We're not soldiers!!!! We're Marines. There's a world of difference. Furthermore, sailors are neither Marines nor soldiers! Doc Bradley was a navy corpsman, which is similar to, but not, an army medic. If you can't even get the terminology right, how can you properly critique the movie?
Anyway, I thought it was a good movie and stayed pretty close to the book. Sure there were a few Hollywood dramatics added to the film, (especially the portayal of Gen. Vandergrift as fat and prejudiced - he was neither)but overall it depicted the Marines well and offered up a glimpse at the hardships of the fight on Iwo that cost us almost 7000 killed.
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10-23-2006 @ 6:05AM
Shantanu said...
Clint Eastwood is perhaps the riskiest and foremost director working in the US today. He refuses to be a Republican's Republican and also detests being a PC-dememted Democrat. So he cops it from both sides.
I for one am glad he does what he does. He is a genius. From his editing, direction, musical scores, to his selction of perfect cast members and actors. He hardly sets a foot wrong.
His greatest fault seems to be that he does his own thing without caring what studios, or critics think of him. And his greatest vurtue too.
Oh, and he is a good man to boot. I hope he lives 2o years more and keeps making great films.
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10-27-2006 @ 3:24PM
Ken said...
I am of that great generation,I don't recall ever thinking of my self as such or ever heard any of this generation of depression brats call them selfs the great generation.WE did serve our country well plus spend our youth years trying to stay in one piece.The flags of our fathers did show war as it is HELL.
In your life I am sure you have never been submited to this type of hell and death this film did show as well as any the real horrors of battle.
And just as foot note this was about marines and a navy corpmen not soldiers.Also the U.S.Navy during ww11 was segragated and the corp is part of the USN.
There weren't any afro Americans serving in the same units in the corp and on Navy ships of the line,only as steward mates.
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12-15-2006 @ 9:28PM
stuart rankin said...
Thinking it was another excercise in American flag waving bravado, I went to Flags of Our Fathers not wanting to see it at all. I was 'treated' to the film Wouldn't have gone to see it otherwise. I was surprised. It was emotionally involving, tender in it's touch and beautifully produced. The tragedy of war is a well know theme but this takes us deeper using old style hollywood film making - appropriate to the subject matter's time and space - a movie located in the 1940's that is made like a 1940's film studio would make it. I felt like I was there and was accutely aware of the time I am living in now. War is hell. People are people. We all know this, and Clint Eastowood's film states this over and over again, intelligently, respectfully and, given it is a war film, quietly. If Million Dollar Baby didn't deliver a knock-out punch for you, I think you'll find this will. Eastwood's second Iwo Jima film, told from the Japanese perspective, is now firmly embedded in my movie radar. Intelligent films are few and far between these days - especially from Hollywood. A definite 'Go See.'
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