Take a first look at Richard Linklater’s Last… | Little White Lies

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Take a first look at Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying

14 Jun 2017

Words by Juliette Cottu

Three middle-aged men standing together, wearing dark winter coats.
Three middle-aged men standing together, wearing dark winter coats.
Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell and Lau­rence Fish­burne star in this spir­i­tu­al sequel to The Last Detail.

It’s always a fun chal­lenge to try and sec­ond guess what Richard Lin­klater will do next – and more often than not it’s a nigh on impos­si­ble task. Case in point: Last Flag Fly­ing, the Austin-based writer/director’s fol­low-up to his 2016 crit­i­cal hit Every­body Wants Some!!.

The film is being billed as a sequel to Hal Ashby’s 1973 bud­dy com­e­dy, The Last Detail. In 2006, Lin­klater voiced his desire to adapt Dar­ryl Ponicsan’s 2005 book ​‘The Last Flag Fly­ing’, a con­tin­u­a­tion of Ashby’s film.

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The plot cen­tres around a trio of friends, Doc (Steve Carell), Sal (Bryan Cranston), and Mueller (Lau­rence Fish­burne), who reunite after Doc’s son is killed in active duty in Iraq.

Like The Last Detail, Linklater’s road movie will be both light and melan­cholic in tone, as it fol­lows the three Viet­nam Navy vet­er­ans on a lit­er­al and spir­i­tu­al journey.

Cur­rent­ly sched­uled for a 17 Novem­ber 2017 release date, Last Fly­ing Flag has also been cho­sen to open the 55th New York Film Fes­ti­val in Sep­tem­ber. Stay tuned for our first-look review from the fes­ti­val then.

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