There are numerous scenes of the battle during the film, and while there is some blood and guts, Eastwood handles these scenes with aplomb; the movie never goes out of its way to show excessive gore, but doesn’t shy away from it either. Not all of it is easy to watch, but it is never gratuitous.
As a whole, the film serves as an example of how many people today can argue that they are entirely for the soldiers the United States currently has serving in the Middle East, but against the war. Eastwood shows his soldiers in an extremely positive light: they are not heroes, but are thrust into that role.
They all end up feeling terrible about selling war bonds when there are so many people still fighting, and about the misunderstanding that their flag was not the original. In short, the soldiers are hugely sympathetic characters, and the audience ends up rooting for them and against the “machine” that has them off promoting war bonds and lying about what actually happened. The government and army are most definitely made out to be the enemy as much the Japanese are. The film is very much pro-soldier and anti-war.
Clint Eastwood, through his directoral career, has made some outstanding emotional, thoughtful, provocative pieces. Flags of our Fathers may not be the best of Eastwood’s work (some would argue it’s not his best directoral feature in 2006), but it does rank very highly. The DVD release of the film does not include any special features, but the movie speaks for itself without the need for further insights.
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