In review: Flags of our Fathers
October 24, 2006 by Joanne Brokaw
Flags of Our Fathers
(Dreamworks/Warner Brothers)
Starring Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Paul Walker, Jamie Bell, Barry Pepper and John Benjamin Hickey
Produced by Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, and Rob Lorenz
Rated R for graphic war violence, carnage, and language
Reviewed by Joanne Brokaw
Based on the best selling book of the same name by James Bradley with Ron Powers, the film “Flags of Our Fathers” chronicles the battle of Iwo Jima and the fates of the soldiers in the famous photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi
That one photo gave hope to the nation that victory in Europe was just around the corner. But behind the picture is the real story of the soldiers who not only raised the flag but sacrificed their lives.
The story shifts between the war and the events a year later, when the three surviving soldiers in the photo are brought back to the States to be reluctantly paraded around in an attempt to sell war bonds (well, reluctantly for two of them, anyway). The men struggle with being labeled heroes for hoisting a flag, knowing that their brothers in arms are still fighting and dying while they’re being treated like celebrities back at home. It all leads up to the circumstances surrounding that flag raising photo, which is much less glamorous - and random - than you’d think.
The battle scenes are not for the faint, but unlike other war movies, the focus isn’t only on the blood and gore of the war, but also on the events on the home front and the fallout from a nation’s celebration of their heroes.
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