Flags of Our Fathers (Blu-ray)
2-Disc Special Edition
From Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven) comes the World Was II epic Flags of Our Fathers, produced by Eastwood, Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List), and Rob Lorenz (Mystic River).
February 1945. Even as victory in Europe was finally within reach, the war in the Pacific raged on.
One of the most crucial and bloodiest battles of the war was the struggle for the island of Iwo Jima, which culminated with what would become one of the most iconic images in history: five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.
The inspiring photo capturing that moment became a symbol of victory to a nation that had grown weary of war and made instant heroes of the six American soldiers at the base of the flag, some of whom would die soon after, never knowing that they had been immortalized. But the surviving flag raisers had no interest in being held up as symbols and did not consider themselves heroes; they wanted only to stay on the front with their brothers in arms who were fighting and dying without fanfare or glory.
Member Reviews
Not as good as its companion piece - Bogart
This movie has solid production values. It has an interesting story. Unfortunately, the narrative structure of the story is not as good as in Letters from Iwo Jima. Every time the action moves forward, the story jumps to the future and the movie seems to come to a standstill.True story about World War II in order to make timely reminders about sacrifices in wartime. - moviemonger
A bit of synchronicity came into play for me on this one. Earlier in the day, I had coincidentally watched the episode on Iwo Jima where one of the survivors (a medic like in Flags of Our Fathers) talked of having dreams of men dying every night for fifty years after the war. This struck home because my own father (a WWII medic) had the same problem. Flags of Our Fathers does a good job of weaving together battle scenes, the problems a veteran has with recurring nightmares, the guilt several veterans have with being labeled heroes and put on a war bond tour while all the members of their former platoon get killed in the war all the while, the story is being retold to the son of one of the survivors. These plots are woven together in such a way that it successfully gives a very surreal feel to the movie which brings the importance of the dreams in focus. The movie does a good job not only of portraying the gruesome reality of war, but also the deep psychological scarring left with the survivors. It also does a good job of pointing out the difficulties of labeling only certain individuals as heroes, when battlefields are littered with dead who undobtedly dyed in a heroic fashion. Likewise, other survivors may have committed their heroic acts more anonymously.Fairly Engaging From Start to Finish - Cloudman
Although not entirely groundbreaking, Flags of our Fathers is unique on what it focuses on in tragedy of WWII. It tells its story by exploring how American propaganda uses a simple photograph to obtain public funding late in the war effort.
There still remains the brutally violent war scenes and disturbing flashbacks, but this far from what this film is predominantly about. Thankfully there is a lot of suttle character developments throughtout and the acting overall is pretty good.
Member Reviews
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Not as good as its companion piece - Bogart
This movie has solid production values. It has an interesting story. Unfortunately, the narrative structure of the story is not as good as in Letters from Iwo Jima. Every time the action moves forward, the story jumps to the future and the movie seems to ...True story about World War II in order to make timely reminders about sacrifices in wartime. - moviemonger
A bit of synchronicity came into play for me on this one. Earlier in the day, I had coincidentally watched the episode on Iwo Jima where one of the survivors (a medic like in Flags of Our Fathers) talked of having dreams of men dying every night for fifty ...Fairly Engaging From Start to Finish - Cloudman
Although not entirely groundbreaking, Flags of our Fathers is unique on what it focuses on in tragedy of WWII. It tells its story by exploring how American propaganda uses a simple photograph to obtain public funding late in the war effort.
There still ...