Flags of Our Fathers 2006
I saw this on DVD just before the Oscars. Though it wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, many people had this film in their Top 10 lists, often alongside Clint Eastwood’s companion movie, Letters from Iwo Jima.
This movie had a very “been there, done that” feel to it. While the story is interesting, with the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima still iconic today, I found the pieces the movie is built around to be old and tired. You get the modern day story with everything else in flashback, like Fried Green Tomatoes. You get the confused flashbacks to combat where you can’t tell anyone apart and you don’t even know who the major characters are, like Saving Private Ryan and every other war movie made in the last ten years. You get the conflict and guilt of leaving buddies behind who died, like in Band of Brothers. And you get the slow reveal of a hidden true story, like in Courage Under Fire. All of those were good movies (Band of Brothers was a miniseries), and all are better than this one.
This isn’t to say this is a bad movie. It just doesn’t seem to rise to the level it should have in order to be made. It doesn’t hurt to remind people of the enormous sacrifices made by the marines who had to fight the Japanese to the last man on Iwo Jima. Such staggering losses would be unthinkable today when a bad day for U.S. forces is losing 10 guys in Iraq.
Anyway, this is worth watching, but keep your expecations low. B-.
The DVD version that I watched had to be one of the weakest ever. The only bonus material it included was a mandatory preview of Letters From Iwo Jima. There were no commentaries, documentaries, deleted scenes, or even original trailers.