Coming to grips with regret

Rating: 7/10 (4 May 2018)

Last Flag Flying: Directed by Richard Linklater and written by Richard Linklater and Ponicsan
Hello folks and welcome back to the Chicken Shack. We have a new film from profilic director Richard Linklater. The last time we had one of his movies here in the Shack was the terribly bland Bad News Bears remake. This was an Amazon movie which is where I watched it sitting there with a tasty beverage to go along with it. This was more of a somber film. It is about three former buddies who served together in Vietnam on a journey to return the body of the son of one of them to his home to be laid to rest. It is about coming to grips with regret. An experience they shared that shaped who they had become as people and what paths they chose after the fact.
This is a dialogue heavy movie which is no surprise from Richard Linklater as he seems to prefer this type of story. I don't mind it. Sometimes the dialogue can have a stronger impact than action can. It all depends on what story is being told. This was a solid movie. It has the necessary moments of levity to keep the story from drowning in the sadness and sorrow that comes from a film of this type. This is a road trip movie but a good one unlike the last movie I watched Kodachrome. The emotions on display here felt honest and they did come with history between them but it never felt forced.
This movie lives and dies on the relationships between the three men. All the actors in this movie are pretty terrific. They all have strikingly different personalities but they seem to mesh well together. You can tell that even though it's been decades since they've seen each other, they fall back into the connective patterns that made them friends in the first place albeit a little wiser in some respects.
All in all this was a fine movie. It felt a little long and it followed the road trip movie formula a bit too closely but the performances elevated it into a solid but middle of the road film. I give this movie a C.