As a filmmaker, Sean Penn has always had a flinty integrity, but the movies he directs work so hard to channel the values of ’70s films — they’re moody and fatalistic, with furrowed brows, and move at a pace of drop-dead deliberation — that early on, in the days of “The Indian Runner” (1991) and “The Crossing Guard” (1995), you could just about feel the sweat of his downbeat virtue.
I think that changed when Penn made “Into the Wild” (2007), a film as dark as any other film in his desolation row, but it was directed with an open-eyed adventure and skill that turned it enthralling.
After that, Penn made his one and only dud, but now he’s back with “Flag Day,” his sixth feature as a director in 30 years, and it’s one of his best.It’s suffused with what you might call the Penn Darkness Factor.
“Flag Day” tells
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