Flags of Our Fathers concerns the lives of the three US servicemen: Marine Private First Class Ira Hayes, Private First Class Rene Gagnon, and Navy Corpsman John 'Doc' Bradley, who are in the famous picture of soldiers raising the American flag over Iwo Jima during that historic WWII battle.
Possibly the richest testament Hollywood has yet made about the paroxysm of World War II ... an astounding movie on every level, not the least of which is its common humanity.
The full weight of a lifetime's experience has been brought to bear in the unobtrusive staging, the delicate score (by Eastwood himself), and a thoughtful, honest accounting of World War II's bloodiest and most iconic battle.
The film strives mightily to make some sort of affecting emotional epic about a bit of history that it itself acknowledges is actually footnote-worthy.
[Flags] fits into Eastwood's late-in-life agenda -- to make violence, even in self-defense, seem soul-killing, and to expose the gulf between reality and myth. After this, how can we ever again make our peace with the iconography of war?