Decision ‘08

Flags Of Our Fathers - The Decision ‘08 Review

Because nothing says Halloween like watching a movie about Iwo Jima, I went to see the new Clint Eastwood film tonight…my verdict? 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. It’s a perfectly fine movie: the war scenes are handled with great technical skill, and despite some reviewers’ attempts to use this as some sort of ominous allegory for today, the movie makes it very clear that those men who died at Iwo Jima were brave men, indeed, who died for a fine cause.

The movie does spend a considerable amount of time debating the notion of who is or isn’t a hero, and why we need them, and the use of certain images and personages for propaganda purposes, but it’s all rather respectful and dignified and low-key.

Ultimately, the film lacked the elements that would elevate it from a good movie to a great one. The story is far inferior to that of Saving Private Ryan, the movie it is most often compared to; no one seemed to really believe in their roles enough to inhabit them, the way Tom Hanks and Sizemore and even Ted Danson did in Spielberg’s film. And the battle scenes, while gruesome and gory and full of sound and fury, never found that visceral hook that Spielberg’s twenty minutes of hell on Omaha Beach did.

The best part of the film, unfortunately, was only seen by about half the attendees, as anyone who left before the credits missed a quite moving photo montage of the real events that inspired the movie, from actual Iwo Jima pictures to images of the real men portrayed in the movies with Truman and Nixon, and of course, ending with that iconic flag photo that started the whole thing.

The movie’s biggest flaws were in the script and editing room; the pace lagged something awful at times, and the flashback device became a bit too routine by the end. This is a perfectly servicable movie, but not much more than that. For Clint Eastwood, coming on the heels of Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, that is damning with faint praise, indeed. Considering the expense and pedigree of the movie, I think we had a right to expect more…

3 Responses to “Flags Of Our Fathers - The Decision ‘08 Review”

1 mtl Says:
October 31st, 2006 at 11:58 pm
3 and a half…?
how dare you disparage a film about us soldiers. Do you want us to lose?

It is tough giving anything higher than 3 since Saving pvt ryan.

The funny thing in reagrd to authenticity is the actual size of the soldiers back then, compared to how they are portrayed by our ‘larger’ generation of actors.

200 lbs and ripped was 1 in a hundred in 45, now, in today’s military its 1 in 4.

a
2 Dennis Says:
November 1st, 2006 at 11:37 am
I saw it and enjoyed it. I agree the back-and-forth flashbacks were a bit overdone at times. After a while, you rather get the point - Iwo Jima was an awful place, and coming back to the homefront was disorienting. and I think you make a good point about the characters never quite reach the depth of the ones created in SPR. Of course, since FooF was based on real paper, maybe that’s for the best; I wouldn’t want to see the scriptwriters taking grand liberties with the lives of real people.

As for the idea that the PR aspects of the war-bond drive are an allegory for today, I was even more intrigued by the notion that such a drive was necessary because the nation was war-weary and just wanted the war to end. After all, we were facing an implacable enemy, willing to die en masse for their sacred cause, and we were losing thousands of good men for flyspeck islands in the Pacific. If there’s an allegory for today, it cuts both ways.
3 Evan Says:
November 1st, 2006 at 1:00 pm
It was, as you say, a good movie - not a great one. The back-and-forth of the story from Iwo Jima to the Homefront also bothered me. From an emotional, story-telling standpoint, I found it hard to invest in characters that I knew were going to die 40 minutes before the film actually shows their death, thus making much of the action anti-climatic. Ultimately, I’m with you, Mark - the slide show during the credits was probably my favorite part of the film.