Review: Flags of Our Fathers

UK release date: 22nd December

Joe Rosenthal’s iconic photograph of US servicemen raising the Stars and Stripes above the Pacific island of Iwo Jima is the starting point for Clint Eastwood’s Second World War epic. Part war movie, part deconstruction of heroism, it follows three of the group — Marines Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes (Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach), and Navy corpsman “Doc” Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) — as they’re sent home to bolster the fundraising effort. While these men struggle to cope with post-traumatic stress and their reluctant status as heroes, Eastwood reveals the complex interaction of war, propaganda and real lives behind the famous image.

Based on a bestselling memoir by Bradley’s son, this is a technically accomplished yet ponderously worthy film that quickly abandons its probing remit to fall back on misty-eyed platitudes about war as hell and the camaraderie of soldiers under fire. Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima, which depicts events from the Japanese perspective, is due for release in February.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 131mins

Review by Jamie Russell

News: Clint Eastwood

Next up for the living legend that is Clint is the Japanese side of the Flags of Our Fathers story, Letters From Iwo Jima. Both movies have been nominated for Golden Globes, and could well see the same happen at the Oscars – especially as, by all accounts, Letters is rather better than Flags, despite being far lower budget and made entirely in Japanese. It’s due out on 23rd February.

Also out next year – and doubtless of interest to some – is the computer game version of the Eastwood classic Dirty Harry, complete with the man himself on voice duties, along with the talents of the likes of Gene Hackman and Lawrence Fishburne. It’s the first new Dirty Harry outing since the rather shoddy 1990 Nintendo Game Dirty Harry: The War Against Drugs, and the first time Clint will have played the character since the fifth (and so far final) sequel to the 1971 original, 1988’s The Dead Pool. Here’s hoping it’s not as bad as that travesty was…

News: Paul Haggis

The Oscar-winning writer/director behind the likes of Crash and Casino Royale has teamed up again with Clint Eastwood to script this week’s Flags of Our Fathers, following their previous award-winning success with Million Dollar Baby. He has two projects currently in the pipeline, both of which he will write and direct.

Set for release next year, In the Valley of Elah will tackle the difficulties faced by soldiers returning from service in Iraq, potentially reviving a genre that prompted numerous superb movies – everything from Rambo to Born on the Fourth of July – when the war veterans concerned were returning from Vietnam. Tommy Lee Jones will star as a career officer desperate to find out what has happened to his son, AWOL after serving in Iraq, aided by Charlize Theron’s detective.

After that will come Honeymoon With Harry, a “blackly comic drama” (apparently) about a man who, when his fiancee is killed two days before their wedding, decides to take her father on the honeymoon to scatter her ashes. Even though they hate each other. No actors have yet been attached – but don’t be too surprised if it ends up being renamed “Meet the Maker” and starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro as a slightly more morbid sequel to Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers…

News: Adam Beech

The Native American star of this week’s Flags of Our Fathers has already seen a boost to his career following his portrayal of tragic iwo Jima hero Ira Hayes. There may, however, be just a touch of racial stereotyping in the casting: he’s landed a leading role as “Blue Duck” in the CBS TV Western miniseries Commanche Moon, out in the States next year, and will be appearing in another TV Western series in 2008, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Whether his one upcoming role in which the fact that he’s got “Red Indian” blood hasn’t played a factor in his casting will buck the trend, who can say? But as it’s a remake of the rather poor 1972 zombie horror/comedy Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, anything could happen – it could be another Shaun of the Dead, or merely another Snakes on a Plane. Let’s hope for the former, eh?

News: Jesse Bradford

As one of the young soldiers in this week’s Flags of Our Fathers, Bradford was cast precisely because nobody has ever heard of him. It can’t have done his career much harm, though – as well as a couple of low-budget indy flicks, he’s attached to co-star alongside Jennifer Lopez in the comedy Bridge and Tunnel. Not a bad next step for an actor whose career has yet to kick off, despite roles in the tip-top likes of King of the Hill (the Steven Soderbergh indy flick, not the unfunny cartoon sitcom), Romeo + Juliet and Hackers.