Eastwood has made one of the most quietly devastating war movies of our time.
- Tim Robey, Daily Telegraph, February 23, 2007
High-minded and generous, but lacking in real passion and flair.
- Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK], February 23, 2007
The moral is hardly original. The scale certainly is. Only a director of Eastwood's standing could possibly terrify enough producers into financing this decidedly foreign, but impressively chunky, white elephant.
- James Christopher, Times [UK], February 23, 2007
Does have a genuine emotional core and makes Flags of our Fathers look like a better film. But whether or not it's a great film; the jury is still out.
- Mark Kermode, BBC Radio Five Live, February 23, 2007
Even by [Eastwood's] own high standards, Letters is an extraordinary achievement.
- Paul Byrnes, Sydney Morning Herald, February 23, 2007
Eastwood shows no signs of letting up. Having directed the last great western with 1992's Unforgiven, he now presides over one of the best war films of recent years.
- Demetrios Matheou, Film4, February 22, 2007
An even more sombre affair, as beautifully restrained as the earlier film but also, despite its scenes of battle, death, suicide and suffering, shockingly intimate.
- Wally Hammond, Time Out, February 22, 2007
A sharper account of the Iwo Jima conflict than Flags, this balances its unflinching handling of the horrors of war with its touching portrayal of those who face them.
- Dan Jolin, Empire Magazine, February 22, 2007
Eastwood directs his performers with great skill, and brings a weary, astringent eye to the carnage that unfolds on Iwo Jima's blackened sands.
- Paul Arendt, BBC, February 18, 2007
Unique and profoundly moving, Clint Eastwood's beautifully crafted Letters from Iwo Jima offers an insight not only into the ferocious battle that lasted an epic 40 days, but into the hearts, minds and culture of the Japanese
- Urban Cinefile Critics, Urban Cinefile, February 16, 2007
Indirectly but cogently comment on our experiences of other movies. Having Japanese soldiers as heroes allows us to reconsider the didacticism we've been handed in the past.
- Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader, January 27, 2007
The proper way to appreciate Letters and Flags is to treat them as complimentary halves of the same epic movie, a Godfather war epic. One half is plainly more ambitious than the other, but both have virtues that distinguish them.
- Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel, January 19, 2007
Where Flags heaved its characters through war and psychic trauma without first allowing us all to get acquainted, Letters takes such care with its protagonists that they awaken and descend from the screen.
- Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle, January 19, 2007
Eastwood is now 76, and Letters has the feel of a movie made by a man of experience. Almost stately in its tone, Letters reflects the wisdom of living; it's interested in observing how men behave when they know they can't win.
- Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News, January 19, 2007
Letters is a work of whetted craft and judgment, tempered by Eastwood's years of life, moviemaking and the potent tango of the two. It is the work of a mature filmmaker willing to entertain the true power of the cinema.
- Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post, January 19, 2007
Humanizing our old adversaries doesn't erase their war crimes, and Eastwood doesn't whitewash the brutality of Japanese militarism. His point is that the Emperor's infantrymen were as much the victims of the Japanese war machine as the GIs they fought.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 13, 2007
By placing us on the opposite side of the battlefield, the movie forces us to approach it from a fresh perspective. The technique also lends Letters an uncommon timelessness.
- Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald, January 19, 2007
The movie's sense of doom is powerfully conveyed; one graphic scene has weeping soldiers blowing themselves up with grenades.
- Stephen Garrett, Time Out New York, February 03, 2007
Doesn't have much to say except that Japanese are human beings, too.
- Nicholas Barber, Independent on Sunday, February 26, 2007
Eastwood and his cinematographer Tom Stern have done a superb and possibly unique job in showing both sides of this dreadful battle, and the pair of films together already look monumental.
- Anthony Quinn, Independent, February 23, 2007
