Last Flag Flying

A man whose son has been killed in Iraq finds two former army friends he has not seen in thirty years and asks them to take the body with him. The three served together in Vietnam. The film proceeds as a road movie, but its subject is what goes unsaid on the way: the account the army gave the family is not what happened, and the father has to decide what to do about it. The narrative neither praises patriotism nor demolishes it; it keeps both at the same table. Richard Linklater directed, with Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne. It is adapted from a novel and is related to the characters of a film made in the nineteen-seventies. Who it's for: those who like slow road films built on conversation. Who it's not for: viewers expecting action or combat; almost all of it happens in cars and on trains.