A spiritual sequel to Hal Ashby’s 1973 drama “The Last
Detail,” Richard Linklater’s “Last Flag Flying” is — like that earlier film — based
on a novel by Daryl Ponicsan. The follow-up novel
keeps the same characters, and though the author shares co-screenwriting credit
on the film along with Linklater, the names have been changed, presumably in an
effort to let the new film forge its own identity.
In 2003, Larry
‘Doc’ Shepherd (Steve Carell) reunites with two former buddies, Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) and Richard Mueller (Laurence
Fishburne), who he served with in Vietnam. Larry has received word that his son,
Larry Jr., was killed in action in Iraq, and he enlists his old friends to
accompany him to collect the body.
Larry Jr.’s
due to receive a hero’s burial at Arlington, and at first that’s where the men
are headed. But as circumstances change, Larry eventually decides to bring his
son back to their home in New Hampshire to be buried alongside his mother. The
majority of the film takes the form of a road movie, as the three friends
reconnect with one another over the course of their winding trek back to Larry’s
home.
Director
Richard Linklater has a talent for capturing male camaraderie (see last year’s
excellent “Everybody Wants Some!!”), and the film is at its best when we’re
simply allowed to watch the three men talk and bounce off one another.
Carell
delivers an excellent, understated performance, and it’s hard not to be moved
by Larry’s soft-spoken grief. Fishburne is also quite good, though his
character gets the least development of the three. I’m as surprised as anyone
to say Cranston is the weakest link. His was the character played by Jack
Nicholson in “The Last Detail,” and too often his performance feels like a
forced Nicholson impression. J. Quinton Johnson gives solid supporting work as
a friend of Larry Jr.’s who’s ordered to help the men transport the body.
Aiming for
humor and heartbreak, the film delves into the toll military combat takes on
service members, as well as weighty ideas of patriotism, heroism, and the lies
about each that get told for reasons both noble and selfish. Along the way,
there’s a number of moving scenes, and Linklater knows how to underplay moments
that might have come across as mawkish. But there’s a feeling that the
filmmaker might have gone deeper with the subject, leading to the disappointing
sense that “Last Flag Flying” had the potential to be something even greater.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2017.
