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Director: Clint Eastwood
Release Date: October 20, 2006
Rating: R for sequences of graphic war violence and carnage, and for language.
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Flags of Our Fathers is about two notches above Pearl Harbor (2001) and ten notches below Saving Private Ryan.
The special effects of the American navy moving across the Pacific ocean is breathtaking. Watching thousands of American ships moving in columns to fight Japan on their own soil is something that I will take away from this movie and remember for a long time.
Too bad that's about all I'll remember.
The movie is about the famous photo taken at Iwo Jima of the Americans raising the nation's flag. Everyone knows the photo. There's a monument to it in DC. It is an inspiring photo and the story behind the photo is mildly interesting.
Eastwood tries to tell the tale of the photo and get the audience to know all the drama behind it along with the people it affected. He did a decent job. I just wish he didn't spend two hours on it.
What I wanted to see was the battle of Iwo Jima. This was the first battle on Japanese soil during World War II.
The island is about 8 square miles in size. The Americans invaded February 16, 1945 and ended March 26, 1945. Nearly all of the Japanese fought to the death or committed suicide. Their casualties were at 18,000 with only 216 captured. The Americans lost 6,821 and 20,000 were wounded.
This was a vicious battle and was part of the reasoning used by Truman to use nuclear bombs. The sad part about the movie is I learned none of the previously mentioned stats about the battle.
While the movie did show the initial landing and fighting, everything else was shown in 1-2 minute flashback scenes. No real time-table or cohesiveness was established. The battle was merely a backdrop to the story of the flag and the lesson of the movie. Ah, the lesson. The goal of this movie is to get people not worship this photo and make them realize that the "heroes" in the photo are merely people.
On a positive note, it was able to keep out a ridiculous love story and managed to only be about two hours long.
The movie has some very gory scenes in it. My wife was disturbed. Overall, it was worth a viewing, but wouldn't recommend catching it in the theater.
Related links:
Official Flags of Our Fathers website
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