Eastwood's two-film project is one of the most visionary of all efforts to depict the reality and meaning of battle.
Flags of Our Fathers
A single shot can end the war.
2006 · 2h 15m · R
Drama, History, War
Directed by
Clint Eastwood
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Flags of Our Fathers
Overview
There were five Marines and one Navy Corpsman photographed raising the U.S. flag on Mt. Suribachi by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945. This is the story of three of the six surviving servicemen - John 'Doc' Bradley, Pvt. Rene Gagnon and Pvt. Ira Hayes - who fought in the battle to take Iwo Jima from the Japanese.
Director and cast
- Clint Eastwood Director
- Ryan Phillippe as John 'Doc' Bradley
- Adam Beach as Corporal Ira Hayes
- Jesse Bradford as Rene Gagnon
- John Benjamin Hickey as Sergeant Keyes Beech
- John Slattery as Bud Gerber
- Barry Pepper as Sergeant Mike Strank
- Jamie Bell Cast
- Paul Walker Cast
- Robert Patrick Cast
- Neal McDonough Cast
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
Here, the feelings run very deep, and dark as dried blood, with Clint aware that some things don't need to be said and others shouldn't be shown.
Flags of Our Fathers is an accomplished, stirring, but, all in all, rather strange movie.
[Flags] fits into Eastwood's late-in-life agenda -- to make violence, even in self-defense, seem soul-killing, and to expose the gulf between reality and myth. After this, how can we ever again make our peace with the iconography of war?
It feels disrespectful to say it, but this kind of war movie, like war itself, is starting to feel sickeningly familiar.
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