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Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

Rate: 2
Viewed: 11/25

FlagsFather
11/25: I had hopes that Flags of Our Fathers would be an improvement over The Outsider but not this time.

Even more surprisingly, they're about the same. What's worse is the incoherence in the storytelling. It feels like Clint Eastwood put random pieces together in four different ways: the present day, the battle, the aftermath, and some years later. Then, he went back and forth so much that the film had become a jumbled mess. I didn't even know who the old men were.

Adam Beach taking over Tony Curtis' role of Ira Hayes helps, but he isn't much of an actor. His character's story is too weak to make a difference in the grand scheme of things. As for John Bradley, he didn't actually raise the flag and said nothing about his WWII experiences to his author son while he was alive. Ditto for Rene Gagnon. But who cares? Nobody remembers that stuff.

The battle is so awful that I still remember how brilliantly it was done in Saving Private Ryan. I can't believe the fake, washed-out cinematography, especially with the battleships, which gives off the distinct feeling of a movie made by computers. When is Hollywood going to learn to stop cutting corners and start doing it for real?

All in all, utterly boring, long, and incomprehensible, Flags of Our Fathers deserves to be a box-office bomb.