Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Last Flag Flying Blu-ray Movie Review

Semper Fi.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 30, 2018

For those of you who may have either grown up in a military family like I did or who have had some regular or even passing contact with the armed services in some capacity, you’ll know there’s no more devastating event than a military funeral, with the almost gut wrenching precision of the assembled service members who converge to honor the fallen, and with “rituals” like the playing of Taps and the folding of the flag so emotionally forceful they can never be erased from memory. There is a funeral in Last Flag Flying, and my hunch is only the heartless will be able to make it through that sequence without at least a lump in their throat or indeed a tear or two welling up in their eyes, but this kinda sorta sequel to The Last Detail is, like its progenitor, probably more about the journey than the destination. This wonderfully heartfelt film is another feather in Richard Linklater’s cap, and provides some career highpoints for the trio of actors tasked with bringing novelist Darryl Ponicsan’s characters to life. Ponicsan and Linklater collaborated on Last Flag Flying’s screenplay, and if you weren’t already aware of its probably fairly tenuous connection to The Last Detail, you might not have noticed that at least a couple of character names are kind of (but not exactly) similar. You probably would notice that both films deal with three vets on a quest of sorts. Last Flag Flying is almost inescapably elegiac for a couple of reasons. Its main plot point involves sweet natured Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carrell), more or less the Quaid character from the earlier film, who looks up his old buddies Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston, assuming the Nicholson character from The Last Detail, again more or less) and Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne, taking over for Otis Young, and retaining the name most like the previous formulation). It’s the early 2000s, and Sal has become a barkeep and Richard, rather surprisingly, is a minister. Both Sal and Richard are kind of surprised, maybe even amazed, to see Doc show up, and they become downright concerned when it turns out the reason Doc is there is that he wants companionship on his way to retrieve his son’s body after the boy was killed in Iraq. That sets up the general parameters of what is in essence a “road” (and/or track, given the railroad component) movie, with these three former squadron mates getting to know each other again, while they also discuss any number of issues that haunt their memories, another aspect which gives Last Flag Flying its elegiac tone.

One of Last Flag Flying’s signal achievements is its finely realized characters, all of whom kind of spring fully formed from the get go. It’s obvious that Doc is introverted, emotionally tamped down and hesitant, reeling not just from the death of his son but also from the relatively recent death of his wife, who had cancer. Sal is as scabrous as ever, but he’s also more solicitous of Doc in the early going. Richard is kind of a curmudgeon, and a holier than thou one at that, taking Sal on for Sal’s perceived “sins”, though as the film unfolds, it turns out both Sal and Richard (and, frankly, Doc) have some atoning to do. The film slightly twists some of The Last Detail’s plot mechanics, making Doc’s stay in the brig the result of some malfeasance on the part of the three during their tour in Vietnam.

Last Flag Flying takes a number of detours as Doc, Sal and Richard attempt to get Doc’s son back to Portsmouth, where Doc wants him to be buried. One of the first detours in fact deals with exactly where the kid should be interred, since Doc is initially under the impression his son died a hero saving others and is destined for a plot in Arlington. The truth turns out to be somewhat more mundane (and perhaps even more horrifying as a result), with the upshot being that Doc doesn’t want to have anything to do with government rules and regulations, let alone a supposedly “preferred” burial site in Virginia.

The whole aspect of the government not being totally honest with Doc ends up refracting back on the trio as their bad behavior in Vietnam comes back to haunt them, something that ultimately results in another detour, as they decide to visit the mother of one of their fallen Vietnam comrades whose death was made (literally) more painful due to the activities of the three. This emotionally overwhelming scene (with a spry Cicely Tyson as the mom) brings home the fact that the “truth” may not always be the right way to deal with elements like the deaths of loved ones in far away battles. It’s an especially incisive scene for Sal, since his take no prisoners attitude has already deprived Doc of the fantasy that his son died a hero.

Last Flag Flying is stuffed full of “little” vignettes like this, all of them wonderfully revelatory of these memorable characters. The interchanges between the focal trio (along with a hanger on, a young Navy guy who was with Doc’s son when he died and who accompanies the older guys on the journey “home”) manage to segue flawlessly between laugh out loud comedy and surprisingly deep emotion. The dialogue isn’t quite as expletive laden as Robert Towne’s was in The Last Detail, but it comes close a time or two, albeit often played for laughs in the context of Richard’s “conversion” to the straight and narrow path. Performances are winning across the board, with Cranston and Fishburne kind of playing to the second balcony at times, while Carell offers a really beautifully modulated characterization where little of Doc’s internal machinations are visible “on the surface”, but which are nonetheless almost brutally evident most of the time.

Last Flag Flying Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Last Flag Flying is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. The IMDb lists the Panasonic Varicam 35 as having captured the imagery at a reported 4K source resolution, which was finished at a 2K DI. I don't think I've ever reviewed another film shot with this particular camera, but the results are often quite striking, courtesy of good use of (apparently) natural lighting sources from Linklater's Boyhood cinematographer Shane F. Kelly. That emphasis on natural looking lighting sources does tend to bathe quite a bit of the film in shadows, since so many scenes take place inside cars, trains or dimly lit environments like bars. Even some of the outdoor material is kind of drab and wintry looking, with grays predominating. But that said, the palette looks quite natural, and sudden pops of color, like Richard's purple ministerial stoll, are quite vividly suffused. Fine detail is generally excellent throughout the presentation, though it can tend to falter at least slightly in some of the darkest moments. There was some very slight image instability I detected in a couple of lateral pans, but otherwise this is a problem free looking presentation.

Last Flag Flying Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Last Flag Flying features a nice sounding if often fairly subtly immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The film obviously charts a journey, and as such, there is ample opportunity for well placed ambient environmental effects, both in outdoor scenes, but also within the more cloistered confines of vehicles like the trains the guys ride. A kind of sweet, bittersweet score by Graham Reynolds also floats through the surround channels repeatedly. Dialogue is always rendered cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Last Flag Flying Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Unexpected Journey: Making Last Flag Flying (1080p; 15:48) is an above average EPK featuring some good interviews and snippets from the film.


• Outtakes (1080p; 9:11) serve as a gag reel of sorts.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 5:38)


• Veterans Day (1080p; 5:41) focuses on the emotionally wrenching scene involving the caskets in the warehouse.

Last Flag Flying Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Perhaps because of my aforementioned military family upbringing, I was very, very moved by Last Flag Flying, to the point I was kind of glad there was no one else in the room as the film came to its sad but triumphant close. This is a very heartfelt film about loyalty, duty and the wisdom of "truth" telling, and the interplay between the main characters has the ring of truth itself. Performances are spot on, and even if some might think the film overstays its welcome by at least a few minutes, Last Flag Flying comes Highly recommended.