Dir.: Richard Linklater; Cast: Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, Bryan Cranston, J. Quinton Johnson, Yul Vazquez; USA | 124′
It’s difficult to believe that LAST FLAG FLYING was directed and co-written by the filmmaker of Boyhood, Richard Linklater. Based on the 2004 novel by Darryl Ponicsan, who also wrote Last Detail (1970), later filmed by Hal Ashby, This is a tired road movie which vehemently contradicts its opening message in the sentimental closing stages. ‘Doc’ Shephard (Carell) is looking for his Vietnam buddies Richard Mueller (Fishburne), now a Reverend, and Sal Neaton (Cranston), an alcohol dependent bar owner. Shephard wants their support in burying his own son, who has been killed in Iraq, where he was on a tour with the Marines. Doc, who was a paramedic, actually tried to talk his son out of his decision. So the trio set out to bury Doc’s son in Arlington, bickering among themselves and the government, old and new, who send the soldiers into one mess after another. Meeting Washington (Johnson), a fellow soldier of Shephard junior, it then transpires that the young man was killed whilst buying Coca Cola for his buddies (it was actually Washington’s turn) – not the heroic death the army suggested. But slowly, despite being put off by a robotic Colonel (Vazquez), the Vietnam veterans get into the swing of things, and in the end come to an agreement that the young soldier’s death was heroic after all, ”because we are an okay country, even if the government sends young people out to die in foreign countries”. Very much inferior to Ashby’s Last Detail, of which it is supposed to be a sequel, LAST FLAG FLYING is much too wordy, the characters are one-dimensional, and the trip with the coffin across the country feels somehow awkward. A very unfunny road movie, with a dubious final message. AS
SCREENING AT ARTHOUSES NATIONWIDE | 17 JANUARY 2018