LAST FLAG FLYING – Review

From L to R: Bryan Cranston as “Sal,” Steve Carell as “Doc,” and Laurence Fishburne as “Mueller” in LAST FLAG FLYING. Photo by Wilson Webb. Courtesy of Amazon/Lionsgate ©

Steve Carell gives a sensitive performance as a grieving Vietnam vet father on a road trip to bury his son killed in Iraq, accompanied by his two Vietnam War buddies, played by Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne, in Richard Linklater’s LAST FLAG FLYING.

Set in 2003, the film combines elements of a road trip buddy movie and a reflection on two wars and soldiers shared experiences. In Vietnam, quiet Larry Shepherd (Steve Carell), who the others call Doc, was a Navy Corps medic while the more boisterous Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) were Marines in the same unit. When Doc’s son, who joined the Marines, is killed in Iraq, the father is left alone in the small New England town where he lives. Long widowed and with no close family, he decides to seek out his two wartime buddies, whom he has not seen in decades, to come with him to pick up the body of his only child and stand by him while he is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

LAST FLAG FLYING is a road movie, a buddy movie crossed with a drama about a grieving father, a combination that works intermittently. Byran Cranston delivers a loud, attention-grabbing performance but what elevates the film is Carell’s quiet, moving one as Doc, a performance that might give Carell an Oscar nomination.

Doc first visits Sal, at the bar he owns, where he finds the loud, drunken Sal has not progressed much from his wild days in Vietnam, still getting drunk, passing out, and waking up to have cold pizza for breakfast. Actually, Sal is frustrated with his failing business and becoming vaguely aware that he can’t keep this up forever, so greets Doc’s arrival and the idea of a road trip, albeit for this sorrowful purpose, as a welcome distraction, as well as a chance to support an old buddy. But Sal insists they have to bring along their third pal, his carousing buddy Mueller.

Unlike the aging bar-fly Sal, Mueller has changed – a lot. He is now a preacher, with a wife and a congregation, a responsible adult who regrets and even conceals his wild youth. More than that, Mueller is feeling his age, walks with a cane due to a wartime injury and has also become perhaps a bit over-cautious. He expresses his sympathy towards Doc but has no interest in the road trip, not believing he is physically up to it, but eventually is persuaded.

Cranston’s Sal is sort of miffed that his long-ago fellow wild man has changed so much, and so constantly needles him, pushing until Fishburne’s Mueller until he explodes. The louder, big personality Sal and Mueller clash constantly, while quiet Doc calmly goes along, and one gets the sense this was their dynamic back in Vietnam. While the other two bicker, Carell’s character works through his grief, as the men reminisce and reflect on the present. At first, Doc is mostly in need of company that takes him back to the days of his own military service. But then the three learn something from one of his son’s buddies (J. Quinton Johnson), that reveals the military have not told Doc the full story of how his son died, Outraged, Doc insists on taking his son’s body back to his hometown for burial. The revelation echoes something that the three buddies did back in Vietnam, which still haunts them. Putting that right becomes part of the journey.

One might expect a story set in 2003 about a Marine killed in Iraq to have something to say on the Iraq War but instead the film focuses on their Vietnam War experience. There are few parallels drawn, apart from how the military deals with Gold Star families, putting the most glowing spin on the circumstances of the soldier’s death, and sometimes even concealing what happened.

The road trip aspect provide the comic relief side of this tale, while Carell is the center of the drama. Cranston’s over-the-top, loudly obnoxious character is amusing at first but eventually wears one down. Cranston takes up so much of the air in the room that it is hard for the talented Fishburne, playing the prickly voice of reason and restraint, to get as much chance to shine as he deserves. Director Richard Linklater mostly handles the film well but needed to rein in Cranston a bit, to give the talented Fishburne a bit more room to shine, making their scenes more ensemble and less a competition.

Fortunately, Cranston’s showboat performance does not interfere with Carell’s striking quiet but moving performance. In one of his best performances, Carell works through a host of feelings, while exploring life in thoughtful conversations with the more reflective Mueller and the bolder Sal. Those conversations, and Carell’s quiet dignity, are the best moments of the film.

Cranston has big opinions on what Doc should do but often based on his party-til-you-drop philosophy of life, something even Sal is secretly starting to question. While Cranston and Fishburne squabble and the road rolls on before them, Doc slowly works through his grief and then anger, sometimes with the help of his more careful friend Mueller, and occasionally the risk-taking Sal, but often in his own thoughts, expressed in quiet conversation or reflected on Carell’s expressive face.

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS is best as an exploration of a father’s grief at losing his son in a new war after having survived his own war experience, although it fails to say much on the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam. Still, Carell’s sensitive performance is a standout, strong enough to be a possible Oscar nomination, which makes this film worth your time.

RATING: 4 out of 5 stars