Moriarty Storms The Beach With FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS!!

You know what drives me crazy? When people take one or two reviews from the career of an artist, and they assume that your reaction to those particular films is somehow indicative of your overall feelings about that filmmaker. Case in point: somehow, the perception seems to be that I hate Clint Eastwood’s work. This is, frankly, an insane thing to think. Eastwood has been directing for almost my entire life. I think he’s made great films. I think he’s made terrible films. What impresses me about him is the way he seems willing to constantly try new things. I may not like MILLION DOLLAR BABY or MYSTIC RIVER, but I see them as important steps in Eastwood’s ongoing evolution as a director. I think his first film as a director, PLAY MISTY FOR ME, is one of those debuts that tells you right away, “Whatever you think you know about this guy, you’re wrong. He’s going to surprise you.” Like the film he starred in just before that one, THE BEGUILED, MISTY subverted many of the notions of masculine heroism in a film, and they seemed to almost fly in the face of the types of movies in which Eastwood became a star. Film after film, he made pictures that I enjoy, that I think hold up today. Lean, efficient genre films, heavy on the character. PLAY MISTY FOR ME. HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER. THE EIGER SANCTION. BREEZY. HONKYTONK MAN. BRONCO BILLY. FIREFOX. When he finally got around to directing a Dirty Harry film, late in the series, he made a movie that still sets a standard for sleaze in the cop genre, SUDDEN IMPACT. He wasn’t repeating himself at all until he made PALE RIDER, which feels like he’s wrestling with a way to explore some of the same ideas as HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER. HEARTBREAK RIDGE was a nice character piece by him, even if it did traffic in cliché. In a way, it’s a prototypical Eastwood picture. It’s got nice performances across the board, it’s well-shot. It manages to pack an emotional punch even though the material feels very familiar. When he made BIRD and WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART back to back, I thought he had turned a corner as a filmmaker. I couldn’t believe those films came out of the tough guy icon who I had grown up on. THE ROOKIE felt like a huge backward step, but a brief one. He followed it up with his masterpiece, UNFORGIVEN, as canny a deconstruction of a genre as I’ve ever seen. I like A PERFECT WORLD, but don’t love it. I admire BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, but it doesn’t make me do cartwheels. It’s better that its source material, which is saying something. ABSOLUTE POWER was crap before Clint got hold of it, and he didn’t save it from its own crappy nature. MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL is probably the low point of his recent career, a film that doesn’t work at all, adapted from a book that probably didn’t need to be adapted. I think TRUE CRIME, SPACE COWBOYS, and BLOOD WORK all demonstrate Eastwood’s strengths and weaknesses in equal measure, and anyone who says that MILLION DOLLAR BABY or MYSTIC RIVER are significantly different in terms of overall filmcraft is just plain wrong. I think they’re of a piece. Clint sort of hit a stride, making a film a year, turning them around quickly and efficiently, and I think each of the films has things to like and things not to like. It’s been a while since I felt like he really got everything right, and because I’ve written that, it’s turned into me somehow hating his work. If anything, I went into FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS hoping for a home run. I think the story is interesting, and the battle of Iwo Jima is one of the more interesting moments in WWII. I thought it sounded like a recipe for exactly the sort of film that Eastwood does well. And, to a degree, that’s correct. He’s made a decent movie that is easy to admire, but it doesn’t really rise above. It’s handsomely produced, but it’s thematically creaky. It’s a film that works in bits and pieces, and watching it, it goes down pretty easy, but the film ultimately suffers from having been overly complicated at the script stage. William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis are both credited writers on the project, but Haggis has spoken repeatedly about how he never even looked at the Broyles draft, instead deciding to re-adapt it from scratch. He’s spoken about how hard it was to crack, and how much he worked to nail down the structure. I don’t think he ever did. The script is way too busy. There are at least four major timelines that we’re supposed to follow, and the switches from one to another seem arbitrary. I think for this to pay off properly, this should have been built as the exact inverse of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, the film it’s going to inevitably be compared to most often. They should have held the battle for the end of the film, and then when it came, it should have been from the start to the finish, to the raising of the flag. After all, this whole film is built like it’s protecting a mystery of some sort. The way we’re given little bites of information at a time, Haggis has structured this like there are going to be some sensational reveals. There aren’t, though. The film has some sequences that are built very well, and I think the battle footage has a great sense of geography and danger. Eastwood explains the goals of the battle clearly, and he makes sure you understand each foot of ground that’s gained and why it’s important. But aside from being a well-directed recreation of the battle of Iwo Jima, there’s not a lot going on during these sequences. They’re impressive, but oddly undramatic. And the stateside drama is much the same way. Scene to scene, there’s some good stuff going on, but there’s no tension to the story, no drive that compels the film forward. I think the main trio of actors has an easy chemistry, and all of them do good work. I never thought I would write this phrase, but here we go: Ryan Phillippe serves as a credible and impressive moral center in the film. His work as John “Doc” Bradley is mature and thoughtful, and I just plain like him onscreen here. He works. There’s a decency to him that informs the whole movie. Maybe it’s because he’s a family man these days and has settled into his skin. Maybe it’s just age. But whatever the case, he was the film’s big surprise for me. Jesse Bradford’s one of those young guys who has worked a lot, but he’s never really had that one great defining moment. For me, I think of two films when I think of him: Soderbergh’s KING OF THE HILL and James Ivory’s A SOLDIER’S DAUGHTER NEVER CRIES. Both great, interesting early roles that show promise he’s never really lived up to. Rene Gagnon, the role he plays here, is a good opportunity for him, but he’s probably the least interesting of the three guys. He doesn’t really do anything in the film. He just sort of recognizes an opportunity, hops on, and then lets it take him where it will. He lets his girlfriend (an adorable Melanie Lynskey) do all the work with the press because he can tell that she thrives on it. And despite the horrors of Iwo Jima, he barely seems affected. I think it’s just the character as written, though. There’s nothing for Bradford to do. Adam Beach, on the other hand, is given a lot of heavy lifting to do, and he tries valiantly to live up to the demands of the role. He’s Ira Hayes, immortalized by Johnny Cash at one point, a Native American who was destroyed by the burden of guilt he felt about surviving Iwo Jima after watching “better” soldiers die. I like Beach, and I think he’s pretty good here. It’s certainly the best work he’s done since the criminally underrated SMOKE SIGNALS, which is due in part to the fact that it’s the biggest role he’s had since then. But just a Bradford plays one note for the whole film, Beach basically plays drunk and weepy from the moment the tour of America begins for Doc, Rene, and Ira. He has some affecting moments, but by the film’s end, I felt like I’d really only seen one part of the character. The film does a nice job of presenting the surface of the characters and the events, but considering how many films we’ve seen about this period, and how high the bar’s been raised by some of the films we’ve seen in the past, the film just doesn’t add anything new to the genre. I rather liked Eastwood’s score, and I thought Digital Domain’s work during the battle sequences was nerve-wracking and disturbing. It’s a nice piece of filmcraft, which makes it more frustrating when it never quite gels into the great film that I think it desperately wants to be. I’m still battling this rotten black lung that’s had me knocked out of service for the past week, but there are a number of things that I hope to have ready for you this weekend. We’ll see how it goes between blacking out from the coughing fits. Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles