People are voting emotionally.

A lot of fun.

Blistering performances.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Flags of Our Fathers is a bit a of a hit and miss. On one hand the movie is quite different from other war films because most of the film's run-time takes place after the characters have "fought." The main focus in this film isn't about the war scenes and in fact they are more of a backdrop to the main plot. Usually it is the other way around in war films. It also has a very powerful message about how soldiers feel about being called heroes and how in reality that is just something we make up. Many scenes will stick with me including the ending shot of this film, a tense battle scene, and the scene when finally find out how one of the primary characters feel.On the other hand, the movie just doesn't do quite enough with this idea. It constantly and repeatedly beats us on the head trying to drive in an idea that the audience already understands. Also outside of the main conflict, the characters are so thin and underdeveloped that it is hard to connect with them. This movie needed great characters since this movie is centered around their emotions rather than battle scenes and a technical war plot. To care about this film, we need to feel through them. This movie has a counterpart (Letters from Iwo Jima) which shows the other side of the battle and that movie is a masterpiece which only makes this movie feel overshadowed. Flags of Our Fathers has a very important message, and is well worth watching, but it could've been handled so much better.

I like WWII movies a lot, and yeah, Clint Eastwood is a real genius, but Homer sometimes nods, so does Clint. What he created here is a mish mash of wild wanton battle scenes, long, much too long sad flashbacks, inept editing, sick sepia tone and on top of that, dry as dust, didactic Told-You_so way of hammering these things onto our heads. The actors are awesome, and they do their best. I cannot say anything poor about Pepper, Patrick, Walker or McDonough, as well as younger cast who also tried to do their best. But all their valiant attempts were buried by sentimental syrupy attitude, prolonged scenes, unnecessary brutal shots, too much of a method hammering, too much of a moral telling, and an overall preachy message that war is evil. We know this. It is indeed evil. The slow tempo of the movie kills all our sincere desire tom like it. We failed. The film is way too boring and tiring and ...yes...obvious. The effort is worth 4, not more

After raising of first flag, it was decided to raise a second flag that was bigger so it could be seen by everyone, including the Naval ships off shore. The picture was taken simply as a recruiting poster, How ever every photo journalist in the world still considers it to be (72 years later) the most famous photograph ever taken. One pf the original copies hangs in the Marine's Memorial Hotel in San Francisco, California. It was originally presented to the San Francisco Press Club. Still a mystery{ Where is the original flag?

The first of director Clint Eastwood's two films detailing the battle for Iwo Jima from the perspective of both armies, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is a watchable but hardly life-changing movie. The problem is that it follows too closely the pattern of other recent war epics like WE WERE SOLDIERS and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN; the battle scenes are filmed in the same washed-out ways with earth exploding over the camera and soldiers getting shot all over the place. The problem is that it's all been done before, and better, so the film loses some of its impact that would have resulted from alternative ways of shooting or different ways of showing the battle. Saying that, the film is far more interesting when it details the effects of the battle on three survivors who end up touring the USA in a bid to drum up some fund-raising for the war effort. I've never liked Ryan Phillippe very much but the other actors are very good, especially Adam Beach who steals the show as the Native American conscript who ends up becoming a drunk, unable to deal with what he's been through in the name of war.The film is well directed, with a good script and music and excellent photography. The story is wide-ranging and the only thing that seems a little hokey is the quality of the CGI effects which is questionable in places. It tells an interesting story, but the familiarity of that story works against it and, aside from Beach's character, Eastwood fails to drum up any sympathy for his protagonists. They're pretty much interchangeable, they could be anybody out there fighting, and even though the likes of Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell, Paul Walker, Robert Patrick, and Neal McDonough all put in more than adequate turns, there's definitely something missing here. An interesting piece, a serious one with a story that should be told, but not one I plan to come back to.