Flags of Our Fathers 2006

A single shot can end the war.

6.847 / 10   1749 vote(s)
R
War Drama History

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.

Release Date 2006-10-18
Runtime 2h 15m
Directors Clint Eastwood, Tom Stern, Peter Dress
Producers Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg, Robert Lorenz
Writers Paul Haggis, William Broyles Jr.

A nicely crafted war film.

I wasn't overly invested in what was happening onscreen, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I still found 'Flags of Our Fathers' to be a very good and a very interesting story from the Battle of Iwo Jima.

It's a fascinating tale that it tells, which is definitely its strongest feature. As a whole I was very interested in it, individually I don't think it's as strong but as a collective it comes out nicely. Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach are the pick of the performers, though there are a load of familiar faces elsewhere - including Paul Walker, John Slattery and Jamie Bell.

Super intrigued to check out 'Letters from Iwo Jima', which Clint Eastwood & Co. released two months after this to serve as a companion piece. Hopefully that's as good as this.

r96sk