THE STARS AND STRIFE OF `FLAGS'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

I'm glad I saw ``Flags of Our Fathers.'' It showed me some things I did not know about World War II, often in striking, provocative and ironic images.

I also learned some interesting stuff about three of the men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima in Joe Rosenthal's iconic photograph, and how much that particular image meant to the final months of the war effort.

But Clint Eastwood's movie, which fights its own battle between respecting and debunking myths of American heroism, left me curiously cold. Whatever I was taught about the two Marines, Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon (played nicely in the movie by Adam Beach and Jesse Bradford), and Navy Corpsman John Bradley (slightly less well-limned by Ryan Phillippe) had me longing for more detail and intimacy.

And while the questions of heroism, exploitation, hypocrisy and the aftereffects of violence are examined here in the most complex context that Eastwood has ever tackled, the conclusions come out more muddled than in his best movies on such subjects, ``Unforgiven'' and ``Mystic River.''

A more conventionally satisfying film may not have been possible.

James Bradley's best-selling book, on which the film is based, was all about the fundamentally unsolvable moral and emotional mysteries of the Good War and the tight-lipped Greatest Generation that fought it. His father John was one of the six faceless men who planted the flag on Mount Suribachi, and throughout a fruitful but quietly troubled civilian afterlife, he apparently spoke little-to-never about his wartime experiences.

Doc Bradley was one of the lucky ones; he was among the three flag-raisers who left the island alive, and the only one of them who enjoyed anything resembling conventional happiness after the war. His son's book recounts his efforts to discover what made these bottled-up men tick. To its credit, Eastwood's movie, which was adapted by Paul Haggis (``Crash,'' ``Million Dollar Baby'') and William Broyles Jr. (``Jarhead,'' ``China Beach''), doesn't oversimplify that mission, but it doesn't fully accomplish it, either.

This may have something to do with the film's fractured structure. It jumps back-and-

forth in time between James (Tom McCarthy) interviewing old soldiers in the 1990s, the battle itself and the home front PR tour Doc, Ira and Rene made shortly afterward to raise much-needed funds. There's a good reason for not telling the story chronologically:

After an hour of horrific fighting, the glitzy bond rallies would likely seem trivial. But that makes more sense in theory than in practice. What's most interesting about this story is all of that promotional stuff back home, how the instant legend of the Iwo Jima picture was embellished and propagandized to inspire war-weary civilians to fork over more bucks. (Did you know that the government was broke by the spring of '45? I'm a World War II buff, but it was news to me.)

Too often, just as we're getting involved in one scene or another, we're transitioned -- sometimes cunningly, at others somewhat lamely -- from the battlefield to the money-driven war at home, or vice versa.

The Marines and the medic have different reactions to their new show-pony duties, but except for some lacerating scenes with Hayes, we rarely get a full sense of their confusion. Gagnon tries to exploit the situation for his own benefit as much as Washington is exploiting him.

Hayes, the poor Pima Indian Johnny Cash sang about, degenerates into a morass of alcohol and guilt, convinced that he should be back fighting with his comrades in the Pacific. And Bradley? Well, perhaps the author never really found out how his stoic father felt about the war and his fundraising role; at least the way Phillippe plays him, the young Doc doesn't express much.

The battle footage is appropriately suspenseful and often gory, and the CG shots of the vast armada that attacked the Japanese island are suitably awesome. But Eastwood chose to aestheticize the battle in a way that blunts its visceral impact. Color is drained from the images until a kind of steely, blue-gray version of the ``This-Is-The-Past'' sepia effect is achieved. Not a bad visual idea for one of recent history's great Naval assaults, but in the post-``Saving Private Ryan'' movie world, it feels a little too polite for the movie's good.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS - Three stars

(R: violence, language, racism)

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford, Barry Pepper, John Benjamin Hickey, John Slattery.

Director: Clint Eastwood.

Running time: 2 hr. 12 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: The flag-raising on Iwo Jima is alternately honored and deconstructed in Eastwood's diffuse, difficult and ultimately kind of distanced war epic.

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Photo:

Jamie Bell, left, Ryan Phillippe, Scott Reeves, Joseph Cross and Ben Walker in ``Flags of Our Fathers.''