"Flags of Our Fathers"

“Flags of Our Fathers”

“I’m not a hero. I was just trying not to get shot,” weeps Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) as one of the men who raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi over Iwo Jima in “Flags of Our fathers.” This gritty, South Pacific “Saving Private Ryan” centres on the three surviving men from that iconic picture from WWII. The movie goes back and fourth between the battle and the journey these men took as the heroes of Iwo Jima.

Were they heroes? Maybe Ira Hayes was just a marine who took a lot of shit for being an Indian. Maybe Doc Bradley (Ryan Phillippe) was just a medic who did his best to forget the atrocities committed against his buddy there. Maybe Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) was just a runner who helped five other combat marines pick up a heavy flag poll.

Clint Eastwood has made a movie here where you can take from it what you want. For some people, it will reinforce their idea of war being the product of some perpetual war machine. Others will look at it as a story of racism, or heroics. The three heroes of Iwo Jima weren’t the real heroes, but they represented those heroes who never made it off the black sand of Iwo Jima.
3.5 stars. Eastwood has directed better, and his choice to write the score himself was questionable.