Thirty years after they served together in Vietnam, a former Navy Corpsman Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell) re-unites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne), to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War.

Watching Last Flag Flying is watching a master filmmaker at work. Ever since he first broke onto the scene in 1991 with Slacker, Linklater has proved himself able to move between stories and genres with relative ease and he won considerable critical acclaim for his work on the fantastic Boyhood back in 2014. With Last Flag Flying, he again moves to tell a compelling story of human existence and interaction and works to adapt the best selling book by Darryl Ponicsan, who famously wrote The Last Detail.

Here Linklater follows three over the hill former servicemen who served together in the Vietnam War and who have essentially been forgotten by time and the society for whom they made such great sacrifices for. This plucky trio of Sal, Doc and Mueller are the every men of America who now together decide to make one final road trip to honour Doc’s son who was sadly killed in Irag. What follows is a quintessential journey of friendships that are rekindled as these men share memories of times long past and reminisce on what was, what is and what could have been.

Narratively the film is very simple with the three of them making the trip to return Doc’s son home and honour him with a funeral befitting his status as a Marine. But deeper to this Last Flag Flying examines powerful themes of brotherhood, comradeship, personal sacrifice and time gone by. While these men may not have seen each other in decades their time spent together brings back strong memories and instills in the film’s audience a desire for them to look back at moments from their own lives.

Direction like this is powerful and is the result of the film primarily being character driven rather than narrative driven and it leads to some truly memorable moments from its cast. And an impressive cast it is. It frankly doesn’t get much better than Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne and here they are as three misfits who through tragedy experience one last great hurrah.

All of the actors are completely true to their characters with Cranston portraying the flamboyant Sal, Carell the broken Doc and Fishburne the reserved Mueller and it’s fun to see them riff off one another. While I’m certain that Linklater was working off of a pretty tight script he gives his cast plenty of room to breath and the result is some great moments on screen, with some of my obvious favourites being Sal’s continuous pranks on Mueller.

It’s rare these days to find a film that puts so much emphasis on its characters and a director who gives his actors such room to stretch. But Richard Linklater is a filmmaker who has always done things his way and this really shows through in Last Flag Flying. Get ready to reminisce about your own life as you follow three good’ol boys who decide to live it up one last time in a film that is packed out with heart, meaning and plenty of laughs.

Image: Transmission Films

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Set during the height of the Cold War, noted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Cranston) finds his life and livelihood shattered when he is placed on the blacklist and barred from working in Hollywood. But this sly trickster is not about to go down without a fight, and through cunning and skill creates some of the most defining movies of the Hollywood’s Golden Age including Roman Holiday, Spartacus and Exodus. 

5. Hollywood’s Golden Age

With precision and class director Jay Roach effortlessly captures Hollywood’s Golden Age with solid attention to detail that pulls the audience into his impressive biographical story. Period costuming and production design serve to bring the audience into the time period, recreating the glamour and glitz of Hollywood’s boom years. Roach fills out his Hollywood with an assortment of amazing supporting players including Michael Stuhlbarg as the sophisticated and cultured Edward G. Robinson, David James Elliot as All-American hero John Wayne, John Goodman as foul-mouthed B movie studio executive Frank King, Dean O’Gorman as the charming and charismatic Kirk Douglas, and finally Christina Berkel as the intensely focused Otto Preminger.

4. Diane Lane: living in the shadow of genius 

Trumbo is far and away a character study, but not just of its main character. As Dalton’s wife Cleo Fincher Trumbo, Diane Lane brings a modern sensibility to the role. Cleo is the glue that holds her family together in the darkest of hours and is also the facilitator of her husband’s black market activities, taking an active role in shepherding his under-the-counter screenplays. Lane breathes energy and life into Cleo and holds her own besides the commanding presence of Cranston.

3. Helen Mirren: gossip queen

Every movie needs a villain, and Helen Mirren provides a very memorable one as the egotistical, catty, and slightly maniacal true life gossip queen Hedda Hopper, who makes it her business to end Dalton Trumbo’s career. As Hopper, Mirren channels an intense hatred for America’s Communists, striving to drive them out of Hollywood by utilsing her immense popularity. Mirren is completely committed to her performance as this unapologetic and fervently nasty gossip. It’s a side of Mirren that we’ve never really seen before, and she excels at it, providing a villain for Trumbo to triumph over.

2. Bryan Cranston: screenwriter extraordinaire

Anchoring the film is the thoroughly masterful thespian force of Bryan Cranston, whose dedication to his character pulls the audience into the story of an extraordinary man who had to fight to have his voice heard. Cranston portrays Trumbo as a thinker, always scheming with candour and wit to help the common man. There’s a certain showmanship to Trumbo, who throughout the film finds himself with his back against the wall many times, but is never far from a daring and brilliant escape. While at times the character does grow dark through the suffering that is placed on him, Cranston always finds a way to balance it with the light, just as the real Trumbo would have done.

1. The artistic fight for freedom

While the success of Trumbo rests on the shoulders of Cranston, it’s the film’s message of freedom, and the right to express one’s own ideas and thoughts that will truly resonate with audiences. While Trumbo does identify as a communist, his rhetoric never aligns itself to the state of Communist Russian and Cold War feelings, but rather for his own concern that others should be treated fairly, and to have a chance for their own voices to be heard. 

Image source: eOne Films.

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