Powerful stuff (Flags of Our Fathers (DVD))

Member Name: martyfarty69

Product:	Flags of Our Fathers (DVD)
Date:	25/05/09 (23 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Incredibly realistic battle scenes, great acting and directing

Disadvantages: Does drag a little in places, not enough time spent establishing some of the characters early on.

Ever Since Saving Private Ryan I believe directors of War films have had to change and improve the way they shoot the movies, particularly the battle scenes to compete with the realism of the battle scenes in that movie, I think Flags of our Fathers is the first movie since Spielberg's masterpiece that successfully achieves that.

The Plot :
The story focuses around 7 US Marines, Sgt Mike Strank ( Barry Pepper ) Pfc Rene Gagnon ( Jesse Bradford ) Pfc Ira Hayes ( Adam Beach ) Cpl Harlon Block ( Benjamin Walker ) Pfc Franklin Sousley ( Joseph Cross ) Sgt Hank Hanson ( Paul Walker ) Pfc Ralph Ignotowski ( Jamie Bell ) and Navy Corpsman John 'Doc' Bradley ( Ryan Phillippe ) on the month of February 1945 with the second world war drawing to an end the Marines hit the beach of the Japanese Island of "Iwo Jima" to attempt to capture the island, after storming the beach they encounter heavy resistance and suffer many casualties, the battle rages on for the next few days but seems to die down enough where the marines are instructed to climb to the top of Mount Suribachi and raise the American Flag, during this time they are photographed raising it and the subsequent photo is quickly spread around the world.

The Media storm around the photo is great enough that the remaining three survivors in the photo are brought back to the USA to be used to drum up support for the war and to raise much needed cash for the US military, however there is some controversy over the photo and its contents and the three marines quickly discover a downside to being home.

Flags of our Fathers is an excellent movie by an excellent director ( Clint Eastwood ) who I believe now has successfully made the transition from hugely successful movie star to hugely successful Movie Director, I particularly like the way he made this movie without having to resort to using A-List Hollywood stars, something I think gives the movie a more believable quality about it and the Actors give as good performances as we could expect from actors being paid 10 times as much.

The Battle scenes are both harrowing yet realistic and I also think they go a long way to establishing the movies credibility, one criticism I have is both me and my wife found it sometimes hard to put a name on a face when later in the movie some of the soldiers are referring to a fallen comrade, I think that some more time could have been spent early in the movie giving each character referenced later more time to be established in the minds of the viewer, also it does go a little slow in places, especially right at the end when the movie is being wrapped up and all the characters later life stories are being told, It does go on a lot longer than other movies do when wrapping up a story, but really its only a minor critique.

For anyone wanting to watch a powerful movie about WW2 then this is a must, some great performances and some great directing create a movie that will be added to some top 10 lists for sure, Is it as good as Saving Private Ryan ?? In my opinion NO, but its very close.

Summary: One to watch !!