Flag Day
MGM
While it may be Sean Penn behind the camera for Flag Day, the title and subsequent desire to tell a story that bleeds red, white and blue feel more up Clint Eastwood’s street. They worked together often in the highs of their careers as a leading man and ancient director, but now, the roles are reversed; Eastwood is absent, and audiences are worse off for it. A story of a new generation coming to terms with the misgivings, shortcomings and pitfalls of the past. How very droll. How very American. Penn’s uneasiness behind the camera is surprising, especially after his strong work in the directing chair before this with The Pledge.
But that was twenty years ago, and time marches on, waiting for no man. It certainly does not wait for Penn, who has been out of the chair so long he may have forgotten some of the basics. He covers those up, or at least tries to, with the new tricks he brings. They are not unimpressive, but when Flag Day struggles to take on the basics of filmmaking, those extra goodies feel like little more than sparkly bits of tinsel. Guns, backwards caps, and cigarettes open Flag Day rather suddenly and without much thought, but Flag Day has no time for thought. It barrels on through this fractured story of a father and daughter with very few ideas of what it actually wishes to define itself as. There isn’t much structure to this piece, and Penn must know that as he cuts together extreme close-ups of interviews and edits his film to feel like a one camera episode of 24.
Montage shots of a family growing together are expected, but not at all interesting. What is interesting is how Penn places himself into these scenes. His character is the typically happy American man, the king of his own perceived land, and little more than that. Penn reflects on this well with sequences that, while certainly happening, feel a bit translucent and dreamlike. A car shooting off into the water with himself and his family inside, quiet fireworks firing off into the sky, is an interesting scene. It captures the emotional variety and versatility Flag Day has to offer. Eventually, Flag Day turns itself into a frustrating and unreasonable feature that sees a father struggling to gain the trust of his children. Why he lost it in the first place is confusing and fractured, but that may come from the strain of the man in front of and behind the camera.
It is no small feat to both direct a feature and be its star. Penn does well to manage the constant ego checks required of a star directing himself in what could have been an awards-worthy contender. But what happens to Flag Day happened to Above Suspicion and The Woman in the Window. A good cast does not guarantee good results. Flag Day is a bit of a shambles, yet it is hard to feel anything but sympathy for Penn, who has clear interest and faith in the story he tells. He just doesn’t know how to tell it.