BEFORE: I've been traveling around the last two weekends, so a three-day weekend at home suits me just fine. I set out to accomplish three things this weekend (in addition to finishing off this war-movie chain): 1) catch up on some sleep (check) 2) clear some movies and TV shows off of my 2 DVRs (check, both are now in the 20% full range, which for me is an major feat) and 3) sort some comic books. The daily movie-watching has put me behind on this, I still don't have time to do "the big sort" but at least I got about 6 months of comics into an order, so they'll sort more easily into the collection down the road.
This is the companion piece to last night's film, shot back-to-back (or was it side-to-side), also directed by Clint Eastwood.
THE PLOT: The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII.
AFTER: Actually, the film mainly focuses on three of the six men, the three who survived the month-long battle and were returned home to aid in a publicity campaign to support the war bond drive. The famous photo of the raising of the flag was a major icon in the closing days of the war, inspiring the U.S. citizenry and making folk heroes out of the soldiers depicted.
Problem was, you couldn't see the soldier's faces in the photo - so there was some controversy over exactly who was in the photo. The fact that there were two flag-raisings on Mt. Suribachi didn't help either - and the fact that only three of the six men made it off the island alive probably didn't help recruit any soldiers, it was probably a wake-up call to the harsh reality of war.
The film follows the three men as they're trotted around to major U.S. cities, appearing in stadiums and forced to re-create the famous flag-raising, while dealing with their memories of the battle and the loss of their comrades. Powerful stuff.
But there's an inconsistency to the structure of the film, as it bounces between the battle scenes, the publicity tour, and the present-day, where the son of one of the soldiers is interviewing his late father's fellow soldiers, who are now senior citizens. We eventually find out which soldier he's the son of, and this man takes over as narrator about 2/3 of the way through the film - there's no consistent narrator throughout the film, as there was in "Saving Private Ryan".
Also, I'm forced to question the non-linear storytelling. My guess is that if the events were all told in proper sequence, there would be a build-up (introduction of the key players at base camp), a very exciting middle section (Battle of Iwo Jima), and then a longer, less-exciting ending sequence (the publicity tour). So even though I understand the reasoning for it, I still don't condone all the time-jumping. We know which three men survive to make it back to the States, so once we've sorted out who's who, we know who will die in battle, and much of the suspense is gone. The deaths of three major characters, reduced almost to an inevitable afterthought.
By the way, whatever happened to war bonds? Our country's been in 2 wars in the Middle East for almost a decade, while our economy took a nosedive. All those calculations about the cost of invading Iraq and Afghanistan, and our national debt climbing to the ceiling - what if you could get all those people who say they "support the troops" to buy war bonds? Or is it just an idea whose time has come and gone?
I do have one more thing to do this weekend - and that's to try and remember that the luxuries and freedoms that I enjoy come at a price, and that price was paid by other people decades (and even centuries) ago. Love or hate a film like this, that should be the take-away.
Starring Ryan Phillippe (last seen briefly in "Crimson Tide"), Jesse Bradford (last seen in "Falling in Love"), Adam Beach (from "Law & Order: SVU"), John Benjamin Hickey (last seen in "The Ice Storm"), Barry Pepper (last seen in "Enemy of the State"), Jamie Bell, Paul Walker, Neal McDonough, Joseph Cross (last seen in "Milk", though I confess, I thought he was Aaron or Shawn Ashmore), with cameos from Robert Patrick (last seen in "The Men Who Stare at Goats"), Judith Ivey (last seen in "The Lonely Guy"), Harve Presnell (last seen in "The Chamber"), Len Cariou (last seen in "Secret Window"), Jon Polito (last seen in "The Tailor of Panama"), Ned Eisenberg (last seen in "Head of State", but more famous for playing attorneys on "Law & Order"), David Rasche, John Slattery (last seen in "The Station Agent", but more famous for "Mad Men"), and David Patrick Kelly (Jerry Horne from "Twin Peaks") as President Truman.
RATING: 6 out of 10 stretchers (probably deserves a 7, but I'm docking for faulty non-linear structure)
EDIT: While laying (lying?) in bed early this morning after signing off, I realized the obvious (to me, anyway) fix for this film. There needed to be more scenes (or at least stronger scenes) with the adult son interviewing his father's fellow veterans. More of a "Citizen Kane" approach to the storyline was warranted, I believe. As it is, those scenes were very short and random for the first 90 minutes, and as a result it wasn't very clear that the whole battle was in flashback. Stronger interview scenes with 4 or 5 senior citizens would also have justified the fragmentation of the narrative - what are the chances all of those guys would remember everything about the war in order, and not go off on tangents?
This could have made the film as strong as "Saving Private Ryan", which kind of screwed up its own framing device, since Matt Damon's character somehow remembered the things that happened to Tom Hanks' character, when he wasn't even present.
You're welcome...
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