Best review of this film that I have read. Well done.

I agree that the movie falls short, although I think you are too harsh on Eastwood's direction [he did make the powerful Unforgiven, after all, and parts of Mystic River had some of the same tidal pull]. And Adam Beach as Ira Hayes gives one of the year's most moving performances.

I believe the problems are mostly in the script...confusing structure, blandly lacking in a forceful point of view. It's always hard to tell a 'real life' story without fakey dramaturgy; if a writer does succeed in removing the falseness, what's left can feel middle-of-the-road and listless, which is what I think happens here.

I thought the movie was a great tribute to the sacrifices our guys made for us there...saw it three times and felt it was better each time...Another good test was the fact that an Iwo vet whom I featured in a past column, thought it was good...So my view is, if it's good enough for someone who was THERE, it's good enough for me...

"I grew up on my father's traumatized memories of being a teenaged combatant in the South Pacific during World War II and Eastwood's movie still left me cold. For this son of a bewildered ex-marine, the..."

BTW, there's no such thing as an EX-marine...

Thanks, Triniman.

Thanks for the comment, handyguy. Disagree with you about Unforgiven, which I commented on here, and to me Mystic River was unbearably self-serious and unenlightening. As for Adam Beach, while Ira may have been one of the year's most potentially moving roles, the performance was undermined by Eastwood's handling.

I agree that the problems arise mostly from the script, but Eastwood's literary culture is so very primitive that he can't help but make the script's problems the movie's problems. And it's not as if he were such a technical magician that there's some compensation in how he shoots even a bad script, as there has been with, say, Brian DePalma.

Thanks for the comments, MCH. As for being an EX-marine, well, you didn't know my father, who was a rather disenchanted former serviceman. At the same time, as a person who always marks Pearl Harbor Day, I am highly conscious of the sacrifices this country has made to save the world from fascism, in World War II and currently. But Flags of Our Fathers is a movie, not an actual contribution to that noble effort. Thus, if an Iwo vet thinks Eastwood's movie does him honor, I don't even want to argue with his reaction, which must arise from all kinds of individual associations that I couldn't possibly share. But that's scarcely an aesthetic consideration--I'm a critic of movies not hearts.

whitch one is clints son

Thanks for the good review. I felt too that the movie failed. I also think it deserves a swift kick.
Most families have veterans, and so does mine. But there was condescension and conceit in his theme of there being no heroes, only what we make of them. Any serviceman I've talked to would think that is a little too smart-assed of clint. They all recalled those who couldn't measure up in battle and those who went beyond the call of duty - i guess that'd be heroes, clint - something you've had the luxury of being paid millions of portraying for many years...

Thanks for your comment, Shane. I especially like the last line, which gets at the weird hypocrisy of this kind of earnest, well-intentioned Hollywood moviemaking. From an artistic point of view, Eastwood's intentions, rather than his skill, mark the only difference b/w his prestige pictures and his conventional output. Since he doesn't have the mind or vision to live up to those intentions, I don't see any reason to give him points for what does me no good.