Flag Day

Even telling the story of this scarred, flawed, barely together family, Penn creates honest notes of nostalgia.

It’s not an exciting film, and it’s not a film with some wider social relevance. But it’s a film that’s wise about people in a way that’s rare. It also launches Dylan Penn, and someday that will matter.

As a director, Penn knows how to create arresting tableaus that draw the eye and spark the viewer’s own sensory past. As an actor, no one is better at finding honesty in the moment. Like the antihero at its center, the essence of Flag Day remains tantalizingly elusive, potently evoked but never fully realized.

Penn gives him a vivid, wheedling desperation that’s weirdly moving, and the younger Penn has clearly inherited the emotional expressiveness of her mother, Robin Wright. Maybe that’s why Flag Day feels as much a love letter from Penn to his own daughter as the story of someone else’s.

The scenes of Jennifer’s childhood are endless montages, with repetitive blown-out happy-families memories and blatant Terrence Malick ripoffs of the same hand caressing the same strands of wheat from several different angles, and the whole thing is tied together with pretentious and solecistic voiceover delivered by Dylan Penn and surely written by her father as they laboured to salvage the movie in the edit.

As it stretches out, it also thins, its Malick-meets-Cassavetes ambitions never rising above clichés of technique and melodrama.

Flag Day is little more than a near-two-hour montage of tear-streaked faces shouting blandly melodramatic lines at each other.

I made it to the end without getting bored, but I don’t feel like watching it again. There’s something in the storytelling that never fully grabs you, as if the script wants to be profound but doesn’t really find that depth. The emotional core is there, and the father-daughter relationship has potential, but the solemn tone keeps you at a distance instead of pulling you **** best part is Dylan Penn. She has a quiet honesty that carries the film without needing big dramatic gestures. Her performance feels lived-in and sincere. Sean Penn, meanwhile, seems more focused on the overall mood than on emotional nuance. His acting sometimes goes over the top, as if he wants to underline the character’s torment, and that imbalance affects the whole **** family drama occasionally works, but the script keeps falling into familiar beats: escapes, unresolved guilt, promises, and sudden reconciliations. It’s not just predictable; it’s emotionally uneven. Some scenes that should feel intimate or grounded end up looking too staged, weighed down by the film’s solemn visual **** thing that truly stands out is the music. Eddie Vedder’s songs add a melancholy and sincerity that elevate many scenes. Sometimes the soundtrack expresses more emotion than the images, which already tells you something about the film’s weaknesses. Without the music, the film would feel noticeably flatter.Overall, there’s intention, sincerity, and emotional moments that briefly work, and Dylan Penn shows real promise. But the film never becomes memorable. The real story deserved a clearer tone and a less self-conscious approach. There are good fragments, but they’re not enough.

(Mauro Lanari) The United States seen by a loser with his family (true twice: that of the biopic and that of Penn) and filmed in indie style. Predictable, disappointing and exciting as listening to Springsteen's entire discography backwards. In his absence there is the heir, Eddie Vedder soloist.

First and foremost, we here at Night Film Reviews , wants to take this time and opportunity to say thank you; thank you for your commitment to our creative endeavour, thank you for your resilience as an individual and most of all, thank you; for your love and passion of cinema and all that it encompasses. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts . Now, without shedding anymore tears, we wanted to address an elephant in the room. Since our last review back in April 28th 2020, the world has changed a lot, and I mean...a LOT! The way the world looks has changed, the way we watch movies has changed so we figured, why not adapt and make the changes we needed to make in order for us to evolve with the times. Hence, welcome to **** (NF does still stand for Night Film, in case you're still wondering). A new way of reading (yeah, that is still a thing), familiarizing and falling in love with film again. So, given the last year and four months of contact change and evolution, we here have decided to make our reviews more fun, more engaging and more relevant to what our readers want, without compromising who we are and our overall mandate as film critics and film enthusiasts. Hopefully, you tag along for the ride. Unfortunately, Flag Day is a lost, bewildered and nostalgically hallow film that seems to have been mis-cast for its 2021 audience. More of a feature film that could act more appropriated as a cable re-run (what's cable? Sorry millennials), Penn's sixth directing attempt seems more suited as demo reel for his two children, Penn's son Hopper Penn and daughter Dylan Penn. Sadly, Hopper has no more than five minutes worth of runtime in the feature, and falls to the waist side of his older sister Dylan, who is the real gem and reason why anyone would consider watching Flag Day in the first place. Dylan, a beautiful and talented actress, who is truly able to flex her acting chops and spread her creative wings in the film, emulating after her father's early 2000's film roles. Since becoming an actress in 2016, after a few music videos, shorts and cameos in some forgotten blockbusters, Dylan captivates audiences with her portrayal of Jennifer Vogel, a woman searching for a little love from her parents, when the going got tough. Between her love-obsessed mother Patty Vogel (Katheryn Winnick) and her "entrepreneurial" father John (Penn), a notorious American counterfeiter, Jennifer navigates through life without much confidence from anyone in her family. Like so many "Based On a True Story" films from the 90's, Flag Day really holds on hard and fast to the many similar films made before it. From its grainy/VHS type cinematography, to Eddie Vedder's Original Song's for the movie's soundtrack, to the minimal character development and storytelling, it's a wonder why any studio would want to release a film like this, despite the billions of dollars lost in revenue over the past year and a half, and despite whether or not the film was made pre-pandemic, or not. Either way, Flag Day is a whimpering and sad self gratifying family vehicle of a film that makes its references of patriotism and Americana way too seriously, if not too toxic; a film who's only saving grace is the star-in-the-making performance of Dylan Penn and a highly transparent failed attempt by Penn in what is his first directing/acting role. With small roles from some of Penn's best buds, from Josh Brolin, Eddie Marsan and Regina King, there is no bringing this half-mast failure to glory. Netflix? Amazon? Crave? Start your bids! This theatrical release will see itself on your streaming platform in no time. Oh, and welcome back cinephile!