Flags Of Our Fathers: Widescreen DVD Review

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Title: Flags Of Our Fathers: Widescreen

Region: One

Genre: Combat Drama

Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell, Robert Patrick, Neal McDonough, and Harve Presnell

Writers: William Broyles Jr. and Paul Haggis

Based On The Book By: James Bradley and Ron Powers

Director: Clint Eastwood

Feature length: 132 minutes

Languages: English and French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and English Dolby Surround Sound

Subtitles: English Closed Captions and English and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Keep Case

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 2006/DVD Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Brothers Pictures

Home Video Distributor: DreamWorks Home Entertainment through Paramount Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: R

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

Flags Of Our Fathers is the first of two films that in some form explore the Battle of Iwo Jima from the American point of view as a turning point of the war in the Pacific. The companion film entitled Letters From Iwo Jima is playing in theaters now and explores the battle from the point of view of the Japanese. Though both films are meant to be companion pieces based on two different literary sources and both films were produced back to back, the casting is different and there are no crossover characters with the exception of an actor who portrays an American soldier that uses a flame thrower on a hidden Japanese bunker. Flags Of Our Fathers centers upon the famous image of Marines planting the American flag following an intense fight uphill on Iwo Jima. Tactically taking the hill was important because if you hold the hill then you have a bird’s eye view of the island and the surrounding sea. The fight continued for 35 days, but the image became an icon that has been past down through generations and arguably helped rally more support in the States for the war through the sale of war bonds because the American economy was still devastated from the effects of the Great Depression. For lack of a better expression, the country was in debt and the credit limit had been reached. Unless Americans donated their own money into the war effort, there would be no fuel for the planes to fly, no means of securing the raw materials to build and replenish the Pacific fleet, and undertake increasingly dangerous missions that were designed to end the war in the Pacific as soon as possible with victory over Imperial Japan.

Thus three Marines were credited with being the ones the post the flag and flown around the country as heroes in what was essentially a publicity campaign to sell war bonds. The problem for the soldiers being paraded around was that they were not necessarily the soldiers in the picture. There had been one team that put the flag up the first time and then because a Senator arriving on the island, immediately demanded the flag as a trophy, a disgruntled officer ordered a second group of men to quickly take down the first flag, hide it and put up a second flag because understandably the officer felt anger that a politician just “visiting” should take the flag his men bravely fought to get up that hill. To the Japanese, the image of the American flag being raised on Japanese soil was enough to drive soldiers out of their hidden bunkers in suicide runs with their rifles blaring trying to take the flag down and kill any soldiers defending it because it was a tremendous blow against the morale of the Imperial Japanese soldiers stationed there. A lot of men died in Iwo Jima on both sides and no one soldier felt comfortable taking credit for an image they may not have even been featured in. However, the photo was in the papers and on the news. The war in politics and public relations within the United States demanded that the Marines who were featured in that photo be present and accounted for as heroes and if that meant that one or more soldiers being honored were not the ones featured in the picture at the time it was taken then as long as someone said that a certain soldier was present at the historic event, they were drafted into the role of heroes against their conscience.

These are all brave men, but the reality that there were at least two groups of men planting the flag at Iwo Jima and the reality that the battle raged on for 35 days understandably made the Marines heralded as heroes uncomfortable and this discomfort and guilt begins to chip away at the men in different ways for the rest of their lives. Thus after seeing Flags Of Our Fathers, I don’t think I could ever look at the image or statue erected in their honor recreating the planting of the flag in quite the same way again because like many people born long after World War II, the history textbooks I recall reading in grammar school and high school tend to portray events like this in black and white when the reality is things are often more gray then we can ever know.

This is a barebones DVD release with only a few trailers for other upcoming video releases preceding the main menu and then the menus are simply set up options for sound and subtitles and of course, a prompt to play the movie. There is no scene selection menu. Presented in an aspect ratio of approximately (2.35:1) enhanced for 16 by 9 televisions, Flags Of Our Fathers is a breathtaking DVD to behold with a muted color scheme that evokes a pseudo sense of the film not in fact being a color film production, but the results are very effective. The CGI by Digital Domain is fantastic. Photo realistic and seamlessly integrated into the live action shots, I am simply amazed with what can be created using modern effects techniques. It just brings a whole layer of realism to the scenes that films made before the 1990s just could not produce in quite the same way without actually recreating it using real ships and planes, etc. Flags Of Our Fathers is actually more depressing than other films that have explored parts of World War II, including Saving Private Ryan and Terence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, but never the less, Flags Of Our Fathers is an important film worth viewing on DVD. A well rounded English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack coupled with a French Language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack and an English Dolby Surround Soundtrack are encoded onto the DVD along with English Closed Captions for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and English and Spanish Language Subtitles as options.

While at the time of this writing, I have no definitive knowledge if there will be a more feature packed release, I imagine one may come around, but if you just care about the film then the picture and sound presentation on this DVD make it well worth checking out. Flags Of Our Fathers: Widescreen is available on DVD-Video now at retailers on and offline courtesy of DreamWorks Home Entertainment through Paramount Home Entertainment.

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