Last Flag Flying (2017), directed by Richard Linklater
Clearly it was time for another one of Richard Linklater's films. Linklater has another one coming out in a few weeks, it is
Where'd You Go, Bernadette. I don't know if that's going to be any good, because it was delayed numerous times and it seems like people have decided not to watch his movies. I don't know why people haven't watched his last three efforts, but it's clear that they aren't. In the case of
Last Flag Flying, I really don't understand because what we have here is a strong trio of actors. I'm sure that I'm not the only guy who wants to see Steve Carell stop playing these roles where he has to be extremely serious, but I'm fine with seeing him do anything and can live with the idea that he may not ever return to being goofy. Anyway, about the film itself, this is a rather strange movie. It's one I liked, and one I'm not going to say bad things about, but it's different. We have a film focused on people who aren't often focused upon, directed by a filmmaker who does not always know when to leave ideas that bombed out of his movie. I think if you've seen
Last Flag Flying, you may know exactly what movie I'm talking about. This can best be classified as a sad road trip flick that made me laugh even though it was sad. This isn't one of Linklater's best films, but it's a strong effort from where I sit. Some people disagree and that's fine, but this is a movie about what happened to your brothers long after they departed a combat zone. When the roles are played by some of my favorite actors, it proves very difficult to remain impartial. I'm not sure that I want to be impartial.
Last Flag Flying is set in 2003, the height of the Iraq War, when the mission was still unaccomplished and immediately after the Bush Administration dared to make such a stupid claim. The mission was so accomplished in fact that our countrymen continued to die in a country they never should have been sent to in the first place. Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell) has decided to go on a trip from his home in New Hampshire, visiting the bar of Sal (Bryan Cranston), a Marine that he served with in Vietnam. You see, Doc was also in Vietnam, but he was in the Navy and served time in the brig for things that he'd done. Those things are revealed to you as the film plays out. Anyway, the brig was in Portsmouth and that's where Doc stayed afterward, deciding not to live. Doc and Sal set out from Sal's bar at Doc's behest, with Doc telling Sal that he has a surprise. Does he ever. His surprise is their old buddy, another former Marine, Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne). You see, Richard, he's changed. Everyone else remained the same, but he isn't. Doc is still a good guy regardless of what happened in Vietnam, he's quiet and reserved just the same. Sal is boorish and has to talk about everything, he's also an alcoholic who can't hold his liquor in the least. Richard, on the other hand, he's become a preacher. He has a congregation and he has a wife, life is good for him, and the things that happened in Vietnam are in his past.
The thing is, Doc came to find Sal and Richard because there's a taste of Vietnam in his life, because he needs something from them and cannot ask anyone other than those he served with before being given the boot from the Navy. Doc had a son, he joined the Marines as well. The thing is, he was killed in a firefight and Doc needs his friends from the past to go with him to his son's burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Richard doesn't want to go as he feels his time in Vietnam represented a very dark period in his life, and he doesn't really want to get involved with his old friends again. His wife insists, though. So, these three guys decide to push on to Arlington, and we find out that Doc did not quite understand where he was supposed to go. He was not supposed to go straight to Arlington, he was supposed to go to Delaware where his son's body was being transported to. Along the way, we are given a glimpse of the group dynamic, and I had a very difficult time not laughing at this even though one of the people was grieving. I think that my high score for
Last Flag Flying is directly related to how funny I thought these scenes were. The official story that Doc was told about how his son died, that's not true though. It's very, very much not true. Sal and Richard are told the real story by Larry Jr's best friend, LCpl. Washington (J. Quinton Johnson). As is often the case in this film, Sal and Richard are at odds. Sal wants to tell Doc the truth, but Richard does not and think it's better to leave things as they are. One of them will get their way.
Last Flag Flying isn't Linklater's best film, but it's strong in large part because of the group dynamic. The events don't quite hit me as hard as they probably should, but I found that Linklater's meandering style didn't bother me in large part because of that dynamic. This film absolutely does meander, that's not something I'd find to even slightly be in question. The thing is that the film hits really hard when it needs to do so. The moments in a road trip movie are rarely all good, and
Last Flag Flying is no exception, but the story regarding Doc's trip to the brig really hits hard. The film, of course with the roles I've already laid out, is largely about people who are long forgotten by society. The military has had an tremendous impact on their lives and is still continuing to do so, their role in this machine is obviously placed into question. They had done things, their time passed on and other people were sent to do those things, and the machine keeps on moving as though nothing actually happened to this country at all. There were things that we could have had instead of these wars, but those were things that we were never going to have had in any case. The only people impacted by the wars are those in other countries and those who are sent off to go fight in them. This is clearly difficult for people to accept. Pulling this off in the context of a film is very difficult, but it works. Sal actually comes out with the lines that explain what this film is actually about.
Of course, a film like
Last Flag Flying is nothing without its performances, and in the case of this film we have three actors with a very strong screen presence. Some of the gags, like the thing with the U-Haul truck, do not land like Linklater probably expected that they would. That's okay. His film has so much merit beyond that, that it is quite easy to forget about the problems his story has. I already mentioned the conclusion of Doc's Vietnam related story, but there's also the end of the film itself with Larry Jr's funeral. The father knowing what the son would really have wanted is something that rings strong with me. Carell's performance is a particular standout, but Cranston was so different in this role that my mom could hardly recognize him. Apparently this is a sequel to
The Last Detail, which I have never seen, but it features Jack Nicholson so I am now quite interested. For me, this film as a whole is one where the positives greatly outweighed the negatives. The period gag with Eminem was when I realized I was probably going to like this film no matter what, and in the end that was true. Even though I liked Carell's performance, I still have a major problem with him taking these roles and find it heavily distracting at best, a detriment to the quality of a film at the worst (
Beautiful Boy). This is still well worth your time should you decide to give it a look. Moral questions were presented all over the place.
7.5/10
2017 Films Ranked
1. Dunkirk
2. Phantom Thread
3. The Shape of Water
4. Get Out
5. Good Time
6. The Killing of a Sacred Deer
7. Mudbound
8. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
9. Logan
10. Baby Driver
11. The Post
12. Wonder Woman
13. The Big Sick
14. Lady Bird
15. Wind River
16. Thor: Ragnarok
17. Logan Lucky
18. The Beguiled
19. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
20. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
21. Brawl in Cell Block 99
22. John Wick: Chapter 2
23. The Disaster Artist
24. The Lost City of Z
25. First They Killed My Father
26. A Ghost Story
27. Last Flag Flying
28. Hostiles
29. Darkest Hour
30. Spider-Man: Homecoming
31. I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore
32. Sweet Virginia
33. It
34. Battle of the Sexes
35. Stronger
36. Brad's Status
37. Okja
38. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
39. Kong: Skull Island
40. It Comes at Night
41. Crown Heights
42. Split
43. 1922
44. Personal Shopper
45. Landline
46. Beatriz at Dinner
47. Chuck
48. Atomic Blonde
49. Shot Caller
50. Brigsby Bear
51. Wheelman
52. The Lego Batman Movie
53. Megan Leavey
54. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
55. Wonderstruck
56. Only the Brave
57. Marshall
58. Menashe
59. Walking Out
60. American Made
61. Annabelle: Creation
62. Beauty and the Beast
63. Imperial Dreams
64. Gifted
65. Murder on the Orient Express
66. The Zookeeper's Wife
67. The Glass Castle
68. The Foreigner
69. Free Fire
70. Win It All
71. The Wall
72. Life
73. My Cousin Rachel
74. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
75. The Ballad of Lefty Brown
76. The Fate of the Furious
77. Breathe
78. The Man Who Invented Christmas
79. Maudie
80. Patti Cake$
81. Sleight
82. Alone in Berlin
83. A United Kingdom
84. Trespass Against Us
85. The Mountain Between Us
86. War Machine
87. Happy Death Day
88. Lowriders
89. Justice League
90. To the Bone
91. Ghost in the Shell
92. Wakefield
93. Bright
94. The Tribes of Palos Verdes
95. The Hitman's Bodyguard
96. Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
97. XXX: Return of Xander Cage
98. The Mummy
99. The Greatest Showman
100. Rough Night
101. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
102. Sand Castle
103. The Circle
104. American Assassin
105. CHiPs
106. Death Note
107. 47 Meters Down
108. The Belko Experiment
109. The Great Wall
110. Fist Fight
111. Baywatch
112. Snatched
113. Suburbicon
114. Wilson
115. The Dark Tower
116. Queen of the Desert
117. The House
118. Flatliners
119. Sleepless
120. Geostorm
121. All Eyez on Me
122. The Book of Henry
123. The Space Between Us