Last Flag Flying
Amazon Studios | Release Date: November 3, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
65
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 45 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperNov 9, 2017
This is one of the best movies of 2017. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 3, 2017
It plays like one of Linklater’s most intimate gifts, an adult rumination on the tricky subject of patriotism. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangNov 1, 2017
Beneath its off-color jokes and curse-laden rants, Last Flag Flying offers a pointed consideration of the hard choices that Americans of all generations have made to serve their country, and of the betrayal they have felt when that country has not risen to the level of their sacrifice. Read full review
90
SlateDana StevensSep 28, 2017
This movie’s strength lies in its gentleness just as its wisdom lies in its willingness to get extravagantly silly. Richard Linklater is one of the best directors going, and Last Flag Flying shows his talents in the full flower of their maturity. Read full review
85
UproxxMike RyanDec 4, 2017
The relationship between Carell, Fishburne, and Cranston feels genuine. It’s weird, they really don’t click at first – like, I suspect, a lot of people wouldn’t after having not seen each other in 30 some years – but by the end these three very different people have a bond. And it culminates with a pretty heartbreaking scene. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnSep 28, 2017
Above all, Last Flag Flying illustrates a fascinating link between Ashby and Linklater, two filmmakers from different eras who both explore American society’s capacity to alienate the same people contributing to its identity. That gloomy proposition finds a fresh tone in Linklater’s hands, where angry, disillusioned people still manage to find room to laugh. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerJan 29, 2018
Last Flag Flying is a thoughtful tally of the cost of war on ordinary lives that also manages to be a funny, moving men-on-a-road-trip movie. It’s that rare thing: a sequel, albeit 44 years late, that is worth catching up with. Read full review
80
CineVueRichard HaywardJan 26, 2018
It’s an assuredly thought-provoking film that’s earnestness doesn’t drag it into the weeds, concluding with a wholly deserved, humanely warm resolution. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJan 22, 2018
A salty road trip tinged with sadness, sensitively handled by Linklater and his cast. Unfocused in places, but never less than diverting. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenNov 15, 2017
Stops along the way at a cell phone store and with the mother of a buddy killed in Vietnam (Tyson) provide opportunities for humor, poignancy, and reckonings with the useful lies told during wartime. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonNov 22, 2017
It’s an interesting showcase for Carell, who turns in an uncharacteristically low-key but heartfelt performance. Cranston is more than a bit over the top, but Fishburne balances him out. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenNov 16, 2017
With its well-drawn characters (a Linklater trademark) and mood of quiet restraint, Last Flag Flying touches the heart at a deep level. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliNov 9, 2017
Along the way, there are moments of pathos and light humor but Last Flag Flying only occasionally ventures into melodrama or silliness, and those instances are easily forgiven. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayNov 9, 2017
A movie of enormous humanity and heart. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyNov 6, 2017
Linklater, for all his gifts in directing ruminative, digressive gab, isn’t exactly the king of dramatic structure. There are clumsy, didactic, and sentimental moments scattered through the film; at 124 minutes, it’s too long and episodic for its own good. But his sensibility—sympathetic, politically skeptical—strikes through at simple, important truths. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoNov 3, 2017
It’s that graceful humanity that keeps Last Flag Flying from descending into melodrama. It dips a few too many times to stand with the filmmaker’s best work, and a few asides into “wacky old person behavior” are regrettable, but this is another solid dramedy from one of our best working filmmakers. Read full review
75
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiNov 2, 2017
The song that rolls at the end credits is Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet.” It’s a perfect coda for Linklater’s movie — it mimics the steady pulse of “Flag”, its warmth and Doc’s cautious optimism in the face of personal tragedy. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 2, 2017
The compensation comes in watching these three marvelous actors have a go at it, which they do with piercing humor and heart. Read full review
75
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezSep 28, 2017
In its deeply affecting final moments, where Linklater beautifully folds the movie’s threads and themes, Last Flag Flying coalesces into a poignant portrait of honor, the bonds of brotherhood and coming to terms with mortality. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GraySep 28, 2017
Last Flag Flying is colored by how time reshapes our sense of self, embracing some memories while occluding others, and the film ingeniously folds the viewer into a similar state of reflection and uncertainty about previous eras of false optimism about national values. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzNov 9, 2017
Last Flag Flying is a movie about a long road trip that sometimes feels like a long road trip — it's sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes poignant, and while the destination is never in doubt, occasionally the company drives you a little crazy. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 2, 2017
Even if Last Flag Flying isn’t quite persuasive, it is nonetheless enormously thought-provoking, and its roughness is a sign of how earnestly it grapples with matters that other movies about war prefer not to think about. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinSep 28, 2017
It’s in the uncertainties and dissonances of Last Flag Flying that Linklater’s humanism really expresses itself. Three men of vastly different values and temperaments come alive in the shared understanding that their losses were for nothing. And that shared understanding is something. Read full review
67
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 21, 2017
Linklater tinkers with Ponicsan’s memorable characters while asking practically the same performances of his actors that Ashby did. Of course, if a viewer isn’t familiar with The Last Detail then Last Flag Flying gets by as an okay grumpy old soldiers tragicomedy. The rest of us know better because we’ve seen far better. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 3, 2017
The bromance often seems generic, too. Fishburne gives a highly nuanced performance, one of his best, as he allows us to see in this man of God flashes of the rogue he once was. But the movie ultimately must be defined by Doc, and we never really get inside his head. Read full review
65
Paste MagazineTim GriersonNov 2, 2017
Last Flag Flying isn’t great—a concept like greatness is too highfalutin for a film so bone-dry modest—but its scruffy integrity digs at you, won’t let you quite dismiss it. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorNov 24, 2017
It simultaneously operates as a symbol of the tension between private life and patriotic duty that is at the core of the man's disagreement with the military. Read full review
63
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonNov 16, 2017
Last Flag Flying lacks the casual, lived-in realism you usually find in a Linklater film. You don’t buy the men as long-separated pals, and so you don’t really buy the premise — the connection that caused Doc to seek out these men is not visible on screen. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 15, 2017
A touching but fairly clumsy effort that only acquires the depths of sadness and resilience it needs if you have the memory of the earlier film shoring it up. It proves that second-hand grace is, after all, still grace. Read full review
60
The TelegraphRobbie CollinJan 26, 2018
For all its seeming modesty, this is a mature, contemplative and mostly rewarding experiment: no awards-season bruiser, but a worthwhile B-side for Ashby’s venerable American classic. Read full review
60
Village VoiceBilge EbiriNov 1, 2017
It’s somber and respectful, and even has a couple of genuinely powerful moments, but none of that’s enough to transcend its oppressive dreariness. Read full review
60
We Got This CoveredLauren Humphries-BrooksSep 28, 2017
Four powerhouse performances cannot quite make Richard Linklater's occasionally moving dramedy, Last Flag Flying, into more than a minor war movie. Read full review
58
The Film StageKyle PletcherSep 28, 2017
When playing into Linklater’s significant strengths as a director of actors, the film is able to entertain and evoke sincere feelings from its audience. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreNov 10, 2017
Linklater is still able to move us, even after he’s bored us half out of the movie with his long set-up, even after Cranston has sucked all the oxygen out of the picture with his hernia-inducing twinkle, even after we’ve given up on Last Flag Flying as too damned cute for its own good. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 8, 2017
Linklater never finds a way to sustain a drama from these characters and their situation. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedNov 7, 2017
The best thing about Last Flag Flying is that Ethan Hawke is not in it. Otherwise, it’s business as usual, and the business is excruciating to get through. Read full review
50
ConsequenceMichael RoffmanNov 2, 2017
It’s a treacly slog that’s regretfully forgettable. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony LaneOct 30, 2017
Cranston, in Last Flag Flying, seeks out the same terrain, but his crudeness is more of a crotchety act, and the journey concludes on a glum conservative note. Some stories need not be told again. ♦ Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneySep 28, 2017
Despite poignant moments, particularly in the performances of Steve Carell and Laurence Fishburne, the weave of somber introspection, rueful reminiscence, irreverent comedy and sociopolitical commentary feels effortful, placing the movie among the less memorable entries in Linklater's canon. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 28, 2017
The central reason that Last Flag Flying fails to take wing is that its characters don’t ring true. Not really. You never feel, in your bones, that you’re watching battle-scarred veterans. Read full review
50
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanSep 28, 2017
There are plenty of truths to be found in Last Flag Flying, and a great deal of sincerity as well. But regrettably, there is not much in the way of understatement. Read full review
45
The AtlanticDavid SimsNov 20, 2017
The film feels half-formed, sometimes trying to be raucously confrontational, other times excessively sedate. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawJan 26, 2018
What a bland and sugary texture there is to this very conservative, undemanding oldster roadtrip. Read full review
40
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 28, 2017
We don’t fully buy into the connection between these men and as a result, we care little about what happens to them. Nothing here feels lived in or real, it’s mere construct. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternNov 2, 2017
The effort shows in all three performances. Spontaneity is in short supply. The comedy seems willed, the solemnity mechanical, the dialogue rhythms awkward and self-conscious. Read full review
More From This Movie

65 Critic Reviews

7.3 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL