Review

Flags Of Our Fathers

Surely with names like Eastwood and Spielberg attached it’s going to be a good film right? Sure, maybe it’s not Saving Private Ryan but there’s got to be a good story in the midst of one of the bloodiest battles ever fought anywhere in history, right? How I wish it were so. This is a terrible movie.

There were some good moments: Incredible battle scenes and eerie suspense as the Marines first hit the beach. Also, I thought Kicking Wing from Joe Dirt did an incredible job as Ira Hayes. The trouble is that this movie can’t figure out what it wants to be. Is it going to be narrated? By whom? Is it a flashback story or flash forward in this case? The channels for telling this story were all over the place and always out of place. And the script? Pathetic. How many times do we have to point out that the real heroes were still on that island?

I’m not saying Flags Of Our Fathers dishonors the memories of more that 6,800 Marines killed on Iwo Jima. But surely there was a better story than this that could be told.

-Reid

~ by Ashley on January 30, 2008.