A disappointing mess.

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.

Ann Hornaday

Washington Post

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.

Jeannette Catsoulis

The New York Times

A piece of would-be American classicism, this is a hackneyed, unevenly written hybrid between a con-man antihero drama and an emotive, heart-bruised coming-of-age film. Like his last, disastrous effort The Last Face, the good intentions are palpable but chased with a real streak of vanity and self-regard.

David Katz

The Film Stage