Flags of our Fathers

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS like a cocoon that's trapping a beautiful butterfly. Wrapped around a gripping war drama with memorable characters, compelling situations, and great photography are layers of emotionally overwrought coming home and reminiscence stories. If we could just do away with that chrysalis, we'd have something to behold.

OK, that gambit failed. Here's another go: FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is brilliant when it's on Iwo Jima. It's tedious the rest of the time.

After reading its lukewarm reviews, I hesitated to watch this movie. Nevertheless, I have a reasonable expectation of going to Iwo Jima later this year, I wanted to get some background, and this seemed like a good path to it. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS certainly filled that purpose. Though Clint Eastwood filmed the movie on the beaches of Iceland, he manages to convey the landing and subsequent campaign in the kind of visceral way only good filmmakers can. Problem is, the movie seems only tangentially about Iwo Jima - it's about the three survivors of the flag raising and their subsequent war bond tour, and their song of readjustment and survivor guilt was better sung through the stories of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

On Iwo, FLAGS gives us a stellar cast featuring favorites such as Barrie Pepper, Robert Patrick, Paul Walker, and Neal McDonough battling their way off the beach. When the action moves to the home front, however, it saddles us with Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford, and Ryan Phillippe as the three survivors. Theirs is a worthy tale, but it just isn't cinematic. How many times do we have to hear the Indian guy suffer through lousy Indian jokes before we can throw our hands up and say, "We get it"?

I appreciate the fact that Eastwood wasn't interested in making just another war movie. But I wish he would have.

Eight Below

I went into EIGHT BELOW with low expectations. It was a Heroic Dog movie, after all, and those generally run from kitschy to depressing. Additionally, I thought that Bruce Greenwood played a villain. I like Bruce Greenwood; I didn’t want to see him play a villain.

What a pleasant surprise. While EIGHT BELOW begins slowly, it quickly picks up steam and keeps us involved in the adventure right through to the end. Here’s the short version: scientists must leave a team of sled dogs behind when they evacuate their Antarctic research station in the face of a coming storm. The movie, which is loosely based on a true story, chronicles the team’s struggle to survive and their human master’s struggle to mount an expedition to save them.

Paul Walker plays the master, and he builds on his fine work in RUNNING SCARED to deliver a character whom we accept as an Antarctic dogsledder and audience surrogate in our concern for the dogs. The dogs are heroic, of course, and though they do engage in behavior that runs counter to my understanding of sled-dog dynamics (As a former malamute owner, I have a passing interest in the subject.), they manage to hold our sympathy and win our respect.

Frank Marshall made EIGHT BELOW in Canada, but the film looks like he shot it in Antarctica. It’s stark, forbidding, and beautiful, and I can’t wait to see this thing in high definition.

Ultimately, I liked everything about EIGHT BELOW. And Bruce Greenwood doesn’t play a villain, after all.