Flags of Our Fathers

Going into this movie, based on the trailer, I was pretty much expecting a SAVING PRIVATE RYAN type movie revolving around the taking of Iwo Jima. Given that Clint Eastwood was directing with Spielberg executive producing, I had high hopes. Turns out I was only partly correct. Now, the last movie I saw directed by Mr. Eastwood was A PERFECT WORLD, back in 1993. Unfortunately, directing wise, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS left me feeling the same way. It felt that all the directing effort went into the battle scenes. The movie itself centers around three of the soldiers involved with the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima. Just like SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, there are extremely gruesome battle heart wrenching battle scenes that some people may not be able to handle. Unlike it, the movie is told in a number of flashbacks that can be hard to follow sometimes. The issue with the flashback story telling is that order of the flashbacks weren’t always in a linear order. The acting isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t predict any awards for it. Ryan Phillippe, who plays John Bradley and Jessee Bradford do adequate jobs, but its Adam Beach, who played Ira Hayes, did the best job overall. This is mostly since his character went thru the most emotions. There were a few surprise casting choices like Robert Patrick, Berry Pepper (allied sniper character from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN) and Paul Walker. After doing a little digging, I found out that FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS was shot at the same time LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA was shot. LETTERS is a story of the battle Iwo Jima told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it. This too is/was directed by Mr. Eastwood and is scheduled for a December release date. What’s odd is that Ken Watanabe appears in the cast list of both movies, but I don’t recall ever scene any japanese characters other than the soldiers in the battle. Overall I would recommend the movie if you’re looking for something to see, but it just seemed more like a TV movie biopic.