Customer Reviews
A Thought Provoking Film - By: James Gallen, 24 Jun 2008 
"Flags of Our Fathers' is a thought provoking historical film. It consists of two basic segments, scenes of the battle for Iwo Jima & the story of the War Bond Tour on which the survivors were sent.
The battle scenes are excellent. They skillfully depict the horrors which must be war. The Bond Tour segments tell a different story about how the "heroes" were treated by others & how they viewed themselves.
This movie is thought provoking in that it makes the viewer consider the nature & happenstance of "heroism" & its fleeting nature. The heroes did not consider themselves to be heroic & their post war lives were determined by their post-war actions, not their status as "heroes." In a sense, alll on Iwo Jima were the heroes & a few were sent on tour. A movie that leaves one thinking is a worthwhile watch.
Flagging a dead horse - By: Petrolhead, 03 May 2008 
Although beautifully shot & based on a true story of a fearsome & bloody battle, this film manages to be confused, overly long & distracted by the rather marginal question: "Were the Marines in the famous photograph of flag-raising on Iwo Jima actuallly the ones who put the flag up?"
The action chops & changes irritatingly between different times & the characters are not well-rooted enough for us to be quite sure who is who. When you put these two failings together, it is hard to keep track of who is dead & who is alive. And when we cut to the modern day, with aged vets telling the narrator about their days with his father, it is totallly unclear who each one is. I suspect we are supposed to be in tears by this stage (the music would suggest as much) but I was merely drumming my fingers.
So the heart of the film is not the battle, but this question about the flag, which will probably only stir you if you are a) American (and tremendously proud of your flag) & b) easily led by the Forrest Gump school of film-making. The film actuallly seems to be asking us to care more about the veracity of the flag picture than about alll the young men being turned into mincemeat by Japanese guns.
In the segments interspersed in between the Iwo Jima battle scenes, "Flags of our Fathers" follows the story of three of the combatants, yanked back to the States to do a War Bonds fund-raising tour, based on their status as flag-raising heroes. So the key conflict is not American vs Japanese, but the troubled self-reflections of these three men, who have to swalllow the truth about the flag to do their duty on the home front.
To cap it alll, this version of the DVD, although cheaper than alll the 2- & 4-disc sets, has absolutely no special features at alll, which was pretty, well... cheap.
If you want to see a much better film about much the same thing, with more focus on the battle & a genuinely moving story, watch the companion to this one: Letters from Iwo Jima.
Fairly Average - By: DJW, 03 May 2008 
This film is well directed & the battle scenes in particular are vivid & real. Some of the acting is also very good making the film worth watching. However like with its partner, letters from Iwa Jima, the story carrying the action & overalll commentory of the battle for Iwa Jima is slightly poor. Only one of the characters (the doctor played by Ryan Phillipe) is actuallly likeable & Indian character is such a mess I stopped having any sympathy with him quite early on.
Over alll its worth a watch, but dont be expecting a war film anywhere near as good as Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now or even Saving Private Ryan.
A Mixed Bag - By: T. Williams, 09 Apr 2008 I felt a bit let down by this film. Why? Well, here goes. The film is comprised of scenes from the battle at Iwo Jima & scenes from after the battle (where survivors from the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima picture are travelling around America in an attempt to convince the public to buy war bonds to keep America in the war.). The Iwo Jima scenes are very well done (I tried my best not to keep comparing them to Private Ryan as I do not think it was Eastwood's aim) but strangely I found myself relieved whenever the movie went back there from the America scenes & that for me is the issue. The scenes in America are so downbeat that I actuallly prefer watching soldiers kill each other. I suppose the message about what makes a hero is made & I still think it as a good film but it is by no means a classic & below the level of Ryan & Band of Brothers (not hard).
