Trailer for Richard Linklater’s ‘Last Flag Flying’ with Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne

Academy Award nominee Richard Linklater (Boyhood, the Before series) returns with the ‘spiritual’ sequel to 1973’s Oscar-nominated The Last Detail with Last Flag Flying. Starring Oscar nominees Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Steve Carell (Foxcatcher) and Laurence Fishburne (What’s Love Got to Do With It) and with Amazon Studios behind it, your dad porn film for 2017 is here. Sully, Bridge of Spies, American Sniper – that kind of ‘dad porn’ movie. That former military middle-aged to baby boomer era dad who likes movies about middle-aged to baby boomer guys doing guy things or ‘ordinary’ guys doing ‘extraordinary’ things. Even better if it’s military-related or adjacent. Last Flag Flying hits all of the bases.
Official synopsis from Amazon:
[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]In 2003, 30 years after they served together in the Vietnam War, former Navy Corps medic Richard “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell) re-unites with ex-Marines Sal (Bryan Cranston) and Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) on a different type of mission: to bury Doc’s son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. Doc decides to forgo burial at Arlington Cemetery and, with the help of his old buddies, takes the casket on a bittersweet trip up the East Coast to his home in suburban New Hampshire. Along the way, Doc, Sal and Mueller reminisce and come to terms with shared experiences of the war that continue to shape their lives. Director Richard Linklater and author Darryl Ponicsan collaborated on the screenplay which follows the trio as they wrestle with the pangs of war both past and present.[/box]
Last Flag Flying finds itself high on the Gold Rush Gang’s Oscar prediction charts in multiple categories including Best Picture, Best Actor (Cranston), Best Supporting Actor (Fishburne) and Adapted Screenplay. Incidentally, The Last Detail was nominated in Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Supporting Actor (Randy Quaid) and Adapted Screenplay.
Amazon Studios will release Last Flag Flying with Lionsgate as its distributor on November 3rd. Before that the film will open the New York Film Festival on September 28th.
Here is the trailer:
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