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Flags of Our Fathers switches back and forth in time to reveal how hype plays a major role in the war effort, writes
Ervell E. Menezes
Veteran filmmaker Clint Eastwood continues to demolish American legends. What he did with that bloody sport of boxing in Million Dollar Baby, he does in Flags of Our Fathers with a World War II incident Holllywood glorified in the 1949 John Wayne-starrer Sands of Ivo Jima. The film exposes all the bravado associated with planting the American flag atop the Pacific island of Ivo Jima. It is based on a book by James Bradley and Ron Powers. Bradley’s dad John "Doc" Bradley (Ryan Phillipe) was involved in the Ivo Jima incident, which the younger Bradley researched after his dad’s death in 1994. The motive was to collect war bonds and the photograph was immortalised even if the act was duplicated for greater effect. But it had a telling effect on Navy corpsmen Bradley (one of the six servicemen in the picture) for the rest of his life. "Every jackass thinks he knows what war is," says "Doc" Bradley and then recounts the story of the burnt pork chop (that’s what Ivo Jima looks like). It then switches back and forth in time to reveal how hype plays a major role in the war effort. That director Eastwood takes all of 130 minutes to do so is not at all surprising. That one experiences more than a fair share of blood and gore is something else one has to put up with. In a way reminiscent of The Longest Day (about D-Day the sixth of June), the aerial shots are impressive. The three youngsters Bradley, Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and an American Indian Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) are at best enthusiastic but the Indian character sheds light on racism, which was apparently played down during the war. The trio launches on a US-wide campaign to collect funds but the impact it has on these sudden heroes is also part of Eastwood’s agenda that does not miss the xenophobia and the blatant hypocrisy associated with efforts like this. But there are folks who live with that lie. Still, this purely American legend is not likely to find many takers here six decades later and sincere though the script by William Boyle and Paul Haggis is, Flags of Our Fathers is not able to sustain itself and the latter half limps. True, Eastwood makes it a point to prick the patriotism bubble (it is camaraderie, more than anything else) but the long-winded treatment knocks out a good deal of sting. Flags of Our Fathers surely isn’t one of Eastwood’s better films and that’s putting things mildly.
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