Last Flag Flying movie review (2017)
Larry ‘Doc’ Shepherd (Steve Carell) has had an absolutely horrific year. His wife recently passed of cancer, and he just received news that his son, Larry Jr., died in combat in Iraq—the film takes place in late 2003 (we see Saddam Hussein’s capture on TV screens). The news that Larry has to accompany his son’s body to Arlington has rattled him and he needs some people by his side to whom he hasn’t spoken in decades, his two Vietnam buddies, Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and the Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne). Cranston is doing a loose riff on what Nicholson did in the original Ashby film, playing the rebellious, hard-drinking, tough-talking member of the trio; Fishburne is the now-religious man who hasn’t lost the passion of his youth, he’s merely channeled it into something else; Carell sometimes looks like a shell of a man, giving the most subdued performance, and one of the best, of his career. What follows is basically an actor’s showcase in the form of a road movie.
And it’s one heck of a showcase. Linklater has received ample credit throughout his career as one of our best writers, but his work with performers still feels underrated. Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Jack Black, Julie Delpy—Linklater has directed them to performances that would be on any highlight reel of their entire careers. And he does phenomenal work here as an actor’s director, allowing Carell, Fishburne, Cranston, and relative newcomer J. Quinton Johnson (as a soldier who has to accompany the men) to do fantastic, character-driven work. There’s great joy in watching actors this talented being given the space to develop their characters in such a way that the performer fades away and we only see the character. There’s a scene near the end in which the quartet is conversing on a train in which I realized how well-rounded and developed all four performers were in that moment.
Sadly, Linklater and co-writer Darryl Ponicsan (who also wrote the book and "The Last Detail") don’t always trust the truth of their situation, ladling on sitcom-ish asides that really grate, although none go on long enough to completely sink the film. The old guys getting confused for terrorists; going on an excursion to buy something mysterious called a cell phone; breaking down Eminem’s “Without Me,” which Sal is stunned to learn is sung by a white guy—these are all regrettable diversions from the truth of the film because they all feel so completely like a writer’s contrivances.
