Ryan Philippe ( Crash) plays John "Doc" Bradley, a naval medic who becomes an overnight hero when he helps raise the flag on the third day of the Iwo Jima invasion. The story, as Haggis' screenplay reveals, is far more complicated than just the stuff of a random press picture casually snapped from the front lines. In and of itself, this film has a fairly irresistible hook: What is the true story behind one of the most famous photographs in American history? The photo, as the marketing campaign reveals, is that of the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima. And even with Eastwood's expert hand at the helm, I cannot avoid feeling like this is the director's stopgap for the film that he really wants to make - namely, the exploration of the Japanese experience in World War II that will soon be chronicled in Letters From Iwo Jima. But having seen Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, and even classics like The Bridge On the River Kwai, there are far too many elements of this story that feel familiar. In fact, this one seems particularly ripe for exploration, especially given our current involvement in the Iraq conflict and the increasingly blurred lines between true heroism and heralding political agendas.
Mind you, there are hundreds of war stories that probably deserve documentation more than those that have already been told.
Perhaps because the whole project seems so.
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