Flags of Our Fathers (Clint Eastwood, 2006)

Whereas Eastwood's depiction of the assault on the island from the Japanese perspective, Letters from Iwo Jima, was almost wholly focused on the grim battle itself, here half of the running time is taken up by an exploration of the angst felt by the surviving marines who raised the victory flag in an image that galvanised the American public, as they get carted around the States from one fund-raiser to the next, cogs in the government's propaganda machine.
Eastwood's tone has become increasingly statesmanlike, indignant and humanistic over the years, and it would take a churl to take issue with American hand-wringing over wars that never hurt their country at an extinction level as they did their adversaries; Eastwood balanced his books neatly with the stoic fatalism of the doomed Japanese in Letters, and there's enough cynicism here to leave no doubt that the title of the film is far from celebrating jingoism. My critique is rather that, as with his more recent Changeling, Eastwood is ultimately too concerned with covering the whole history, and dramatic structure suffers as a result. To be filed under worthy but dull.

5/10