MOVIE NIGHT TRAFFIC LIGHT

Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Space Cowboys)

Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Space Cowboys), Robert Lorenz (Mystic River), Steven Spielberg (Memoirs of a Geisha, Monster House, Catch Me If You Can)

William Broyles Jr. (Cast Away, Apollo 13), Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby, The Last Kiss)

Paul Walker – Hank Hansen (Running Scared, Eight Below, The Fast and the Furious)

Neil McDonough – Captain Severance (The Guardian, Minority Report)

Robert Patrick – Colonel Chandler Johnson (Terminator 2, Firewall, Walk the Line)

Ryan Phillippe – John “Doc” Bradley (Crash, I Know What You Did Last Summer)

Flags of Our Fathers is from a couple of Hollywood newcomers named Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg, and it’s about a little known military skirmish called World War II. 

 Given the subject matter of this movie, it’s a story that’s hard to watch, but masterfully done by two Hollywood legends.  The story is about one of the bloodiest battles in World War II – The Battle of Iwo Jima.  At this point in history, the U.S. Government had lost the faith of the American people that this war could be won.  The Government needed a way to regain the people’s faith and compel them to financially support the war efforts.  They found a way to do this when a photographer captured an image that would become one of the most infamous images in America’s history.  The picture is of six soldiers hoisting the American flag high on top of Iwo Jima.  To leverage America’s interest around this picture, the Government brought the three surviving soldiers it that picture back to the United States.  The reluctant soldiers were met as heroes and paraded across the country to help raise money.  Along with the brutal war, the movie is about the personal struggles the three soldiers have to accept being called heroes and being taken away from their friends and the fighting they have been trained to do.

Flags of Our Fathers is very authentic and apparently historically accurate.  Its war imagery is the best ever – Clint Eastwood does an astounding job of depicting both the incredible spectacle and absolute horror of battle.  The movie relies heavily on flashbacks and parallel stories to deliver its message, but it’s all well done.  But, there is no “thrill of victory” here – the message seems to be that stories of true heroism and ultimate sacrifice are, in fact, very sad stories.  It’s a depressing message, but an important message, and one so aptly told that Flags of Our Fathers is a movie worth seeing.

On the Movie Night Traffic Light on a scale of GREEN meaning “Go – it’s a must see”, YELLOW meaning “Caution – it’s okay” and RED meaning “No - stop don’t do it."

We rate Flags of Our Fathers GREEN.  Go – a very well done movie about a hard subject.