One would be hard-pressed to find someone who thinks war is a great thing, even with protection as people’s most primal instinct.

“Flags of Our Fathers” is based on James Bradley’s book of the same title. Bradley is the son of a Navy Corpsmen in one of the most circulated pictures of American history. The picture is of six men hoisting an American flag on top of Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima.

The film looks at that picture and the uncertainties surrounding it, such as if it was posed and who is actually in the picture.

Most of the movie is centered on James Bradley (Ryan Phillippe), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and Ira Hayes (Adam Beach) and their struggles being thrust into the spotlight by a country looking for heroes. The actors play these three roles very well; each acts like a real person and not as if they have done something great. Phillippe’s character says the real heroes are the ones that died in battle, and these three were just the ones that made it out alive.

The strongest point is the way it painted war. There were no grandiose characters that saved the entire platoon from attack. Most war movies are overrun with people getting shot or blown up, but “Flags” focuses more on the story of the men involved in the fighting. Sure, it shows a large number of people dying, but that is war. However, they did not make the movie a blood bath.

Historical accuracy is important in this sort of movie, especially when veterans of that particular war may still be around, and this movie uses the real names of members of the military and does a great job of recreating the island of Iwo Jima. Many times, a war movie falls into the trap of making all of the characters look like heroes who died for their country. This movie takes a different approach, assuming many of the men just did not want to get shot and wanted to protect the guys in their platoon.

The only annoying thing is the miniscule amount of time spent on the three men from the picture who died in battle. There is only about five minutes spent on these three characters.