Flags of Our Father 11/27/06

Clint Eastwood's new war movie left something to be desired. Most of it was good enough, definitely the battle scenes and the subsequent publicity tour. The biggest problem was the over abundance of voice over narration and the subsequent confusion. 
It was very confusing as to who was tellling this story, when, and how. Only at the end did I finally understand that it was the son of one of the soldiers that was visiting other veterans and interviewing them. If that's so then this story is being told by that son. So it's his story. Therefore Eastwood should have made that clear up front and then given the son more background. That way when the end of the movie come around, and it happens to be mostly about the son, I the viewer shouldn't think that the final scenes have very little to do with the movie. The movie was a bit anti-climatic. It's what's stopping this movie from becoming something other than run-of-the-mill. 

The battle scenes have a weird look to them. This isn't really a complaint, but it sort of looked like a video game and when it didn't look like a video game it looked like 'Saving Private Ryan.' On that note I really liked the casting of Barry Pepper. As one may remember he was the sniper in 'Saving Private Ryan.' Having him in this movie gave it a more authentic feel. Ryan Phillipe does a fine job too I guess. Most of the other guys I plain didn't recognize. 
There is so much talk about the flag-raising and how it was paticularly meaningless to the men who did it. But Eastwood also makes such a big deal over the flag-raising also that it completely substitutes the rest of the battle. This begs the question I think. Why didn't Eastwood make a movie about the battle of Iwo Jima and not about the flag-raising if he thought the flag raising wasn't that great. There's a look and feel to Eastwood's movies that makes them seem great, but I find that I look closer and I can never quite find the heart. The movies don't go to much farther than skin-deep. That's why I rarely watch an Eastwood film twice, although this one is definitely worth seeing once. I hope it doesn't win any oscars.