A great ensemble piece with meaning

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2018)

Last Flag Flying (2017)
A great, low-key mixture of comedy and sadness. The more it went on the more I appreciated the situation, which unfolds like a play, and the ensemble acting, which is sharp. Bryan Cranston steals the show as the outgoing practical bartender veteran, but Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell are really spot on, too, in deliberately restrained ways.
The film is trying to get to something here. At first it seems to be about some guys coming to terms with their time in Viet Nam, and how it compromised them then, with repurcussions ever onward. Then a slow critique of war and of the US approach to war, pretending everyone in uniform is always a hero, and fighting for questionable (or worse) causes.
But an important third element grows-the actual meaning these men have for each other. They hadn't seen each other in decades, but their comraderie was almost unbroken because of some deep bond formed in wartime. And when it really comes down to it, even as they reject and hate the government for what they were forced to do, they still understood honor and respect.
Including a love of country, somehow. That it's there, despite the flaws. Or something like that. (There are complications, and it would be easy and shameful to oversimplify.)
The big point is: see this and give it time to settle in and warm up. The three men are deliberately an odd mix, and there are a couple of scenes that are rather too neatly contrived to make a fast point in the narrative, but overall it makes sense and is moving.