Language: English
Cast: Ryan Phillippe (John Bradley), Jesse Bradford (Rene Gagnon), Adam Beach (Ira Hayes) and Robert Patrick (Col. Chandler Johnson)
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writing credits: William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, based on the book by James Bradley with Ron Powers
Music: Clint Eastwood
Release Date: October 20, 2006
Production House: DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Brothers Entertainment
Running Time: 132 minutes
Rating: R

Review

A war movie with a difference – ‘Flags of our Fathers’ recounts the tale of three men John ‘Doc’ Bradley, Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon – who raise the American flag in the Iwo Jima battle during the Second World War. It may seem that the WWII is a popular subject for movies and the present movie offers nothing different but Clint Eastwood proves us wrong. There is still a lot we don’t know about the war and the toll it took on the lives of its veterans and that is what Eastwood tries to show in the movie. ‘Flags of our Fathers’ and Eastwood’s next film ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ seek to bring out the emotional battle that follows wars from the American perspective in this movie and fom the Japanese side in the next film.

Three men deal with the carnage of the battle in completely different ways as they receive a hero’s welcome thanks to the AP photographer capturing the moment of the flag rising. Yet in a message that is relevant to the wars we send our men to fight wars today. The message is that that we extract an unspeakable cost when we ask men to kill other men. There is never any doubt in the film that the country needed to fight this war, that it was necessary; it is the horror at such necessity that defines “Flags of Our Fathers,” not exultation.

Cruel Intentions star gives a subtle performance as Doc in the tale which is based partly on Doc’s son’s account of his father’s grief while the overall best performance is given by Adam Beach as Ira, the Pima Indian driven to drunken sorrow after the horrors of the battle. While it lacks the technical superiority of producer Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan the movie has an emotional impact that is different from the run of the mill war movies till now.