FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS — ** 1/2 — Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach; rated R (violence, gore, profanity, brief drugs, vulgarity, racial epithets).
"Flags of Our Fathers" looks and sounds an awful lot like the Oscar-winning World War II epic "Saving Private Ryan." It even employs some of the same flash-between-the-past-and-present story structure, has the same muted "desaturated" color scheme, and even features one of "Ryan's" supporting cast members, Barry Pepper.
And Steven Spielberg co-produced!
But this film is definitely no "Saving Private Ryan." Not by a long shot.
For one thing, it's not really the war epic that it appears to be from the trailers. While it does feature several vivid, credible Battle of Iwo Jima scenes, the movie is more of a drama dealing with the continuing debate over just who is in the much-ballyhooed Iwo Jima promotional image.
Also, there's a real heavy-handedness to this Clint Eastwood-directed tale that makes "Ryan" almost seem subtle by comparison.
Much of "Flags" concerns three real-life figures — John Bradley, Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes, played in the film by Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach.
According to this version of events — based on a novel co-written by Bradley's son — the three men were in the Pacific for the fighting and were present when American flags were planted on one of the island's summits. So the trio is removed from the fighting and returned to the states, where they're turned into spokesmen for war-bond efforts. But they're reluctant to be hailed as heroes — especially Ira and John, who are still haunted by the deaths of their fellow soldiers.
Though Eastwood directed, the film appears to have two very different voices. Which isn't surprising, when you consider the screenwriters are William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis, who have very different writing styles. (Broyles clearly wrote the war scenes; Haggis' contributions are surely the more socially relevant scenes.)
And Eastwood has made a few unwise casting decisions. While Paul Walker is in the film for what seems like a mere five minutes at most, he's still painfully awful. And character actor David Patrick Kelly looks pretty ridiculous as Harry S. Truman.
Still, the war scenes are well-staged and the three leads are solid, especially Bradford's Gagnon, who has a few more character shadings than the other two.
"Flags of Our Fathers" is rated R for strong scenes of war violence (including shootings, stabbings and explosive mayhem), graphic scenes of gore, some strong sexual profanity, brief drug content (use of needles, and some references), crude sexual humor and references, and use of racial slurs. Running time: 136 minutes.
E-mail: jeff@desnews.com