Flags of Our Fathers [Blu-ray]

Customer Rating:
Summary: I cracked it
Comment: I WAS CLEANING IT, WHEN I ACCIDENTLY CRACKED IT. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ANOTHER FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS PLEASE. THANKS SO MUCH.

Customer Rating:
Summary: 2nd to Saving Private Ryan
Comment: This flick is right up there with Saving Private Ryan as far as WW2 movies are concerned. Maybe the gore wasnt on the same level as SPR but the story was great. I am a Soilder my self and I was really touched and satisfied of the portrayal of the Corps, I realize this film has been uncarefully scrutinized by the likes of Mr Bruce Bains but I completely feel that his negative reviews are flawed and biased. This movie is a wonderful Eastwood masterpiece. It deserves 5 stars. The following is for Mr Bruce,

Bruce Bain you are defeating your purpose, you try to come across as some Intelectual Jarhead who is trying to educate the ignorant public. Well having said that you really portray yourself as some pompous leftwing narcissictic elitist scum of the earth that is probally in love with his so called writing abilities. Your message is so uncompelling and painful to read, you should try to be an editor for childrens books instead of dedicating your slimy fingers to contradict anyone and anything. Please quit hiding behind that you are or were a Marine, there are good and bad, smart and stupid, strong and weak, in every faction of society not excluding the Devil Dog society, you just happen to fall into the ladder category assuming you are who you say you are. But who cares? Probally just yourself, now go ahead and over analyze my comment and scrutinize every little character that I have written I will not be waiting for your egotistical response. Hooooahhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Customer Rating:
Summary: Flags of Our Fathers
Comment: Excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I like WWII movies since I have a connection to that era. Very well done.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Worthy effort, scattershot result
Comment: This is one of those movies of which each of the ingredients makes your mouth water, yet the sum of the parts leaves a slightly flat taste.
First of all, lets say, this is a film worth watching, with an interesting message, great cinematography and terrific acting. However, the decision to straddle two types of story weakens the stories impact, and the end result feels just a little too unfocussed to really work well.
The story follows 3 of the surviving men of the famous photo of raising the flag on Iwo Jima. The photo becomes an iconic image of victory, and the government seizes the opportunity to use the survivors to tour the US exhorting the public to buy War Bonds. To understand the film a little better, it is necessary to go in realizing that this is not a historical dramatization of the Battle of Iwo Jima in the traditional war movie sense, although scenes from that conflict are brutally realistically portrayed, in true post-Ryan terms. It really only shows those war scenes as scattered flashbacks of the veterans as they are paraded around America to help sell the war. In using the flashbacks to show the battle, we are being led to understand not what the moment of war itself is like, but how the memories of certain moments within a war can stay with you and haunt you, or in the case of Ira Hayes, drive you to drink. It's a different way of looking at the horror of war than we usually get - however the effect of that is weakened by layering another level of flashbacks to the same events, viewed as the son of one of the men interviews his fathers friends to find out more about what happened to him. It's an unnecessary complication which weakens the movie. A second theme is the obvious one about the role of propaganda - how the act of allowing a lie to sell the truth becomes its own form of corruption.
And so, we go bouncing between these two central ideas as we see how the 3 survivors react differently to their new found `fame'. The leads are all fine, and the cinematography as we have come to expect in an Eastwood movie is great - but the end result feels like it has just a little too much baggage to work efficiently - but flawed as it is, it is still worth a look.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Good war film footage but narrative flow was confusing
Comment: This film had both strengths and weaknesses but a few of the weaknesses kept the film from being a great production. The film is about the nature of heroism. It explores the question of what makes a hero, why do we need heroes, what happens to heroes? To some degree it also explores the concept of the fatal flaw of the hero, a classic theme in literature.

The story is about the battle for Iwo Jima and the famous photograph taken February 23, 1945 of 5 Marines and 1 Navy medic raising the US flag on Mt. Suribachi. This famous photograph by Joe Rosenthal became iconic and was a symbol for US victory. The narrative is around 3 of the surviving 6 men who are recruited to be heroes for the American public and to focus on sale of war bonds to further finance the war.

The transport of the troops to Iwa Jima and the battle scenes are the strongest part of the film. If the entire film had been about the full battle for Iwa Jima, it would probably have been a winner, based on the excellent portion of this film that focused on actual warfare. The advance of US troops from the beaches into the mountains and the determined struggle of the Japanese soldiers was excellent film-making. The terrible casualties were very realistically filmed and captured the horror of warfare. This third of the total film deserves 5 stars and is the strongest part of the entire film.

The film however explores the fate of 3 of the surviving men as they are pulled away from the war to become celebrity heroes and to sell war bonds. Here the film explores the fickle nature of idolatry and celebrity. Here we see the 3 servicemen treated in much the same way as the photograph. The public is interested in the surface, the image, and not in the nitty gritty details of reality.

Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe, and Jesse Bradford play the 3 lead characters. Unfortunately the script does not allow them to become fully characterized and realistic to the audience. Adam Beach tries the hardest, as a Native American man who struggles against the lack of authenticity in the hero production business while comparing this falseness to the tragedy and loss that he and his friends experienced during the battle. He also struggles against a barrage of stereotypical racist impressions and encounters while also struggling with emerging alcoholism. He is the most fully articulated character in the film and Beach tries hard. Ryan Phillippe, who plays the Navy medic, plays more of the Everyman role, the average American middle-class male who absorbs everything around him but keeps the trauma internal until late in his life as a senior citizen his post-traumatic stress disorder emerges in nightmares and flashbacks. Jesse Bradford is meant to play an opportunist who gradually grows on the audience as his humanity begins to slowly emerge. His engagement to his home town girlfriend becomes a focus for the press. These three men manage celebrity in very different ways. The Native American has difficulty coping with the hypocrisy and glitz when he is feeling grief and loss. The Navy medic internalizes and copes outwardly, making compromises and rising to the occasion for what he sees as a greater good. We are not fully aware of Jesse Bradford's internal state. He seems to enjoy the celebrity and play the role for the cameras, but his internal response is never really explored.

The greatest weakness of the film however is the constant flashbacks and flash forwards between the war scenes, the scenes where the 3 fellows are made into heroes, the adaptations these men make after the war, and the final recollections of aged soldiers. These four time frames were shuffled together like a deck of cards and totally deconstructed the film for the viewers. A more basic narrative flow would have served the story much better.