Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying opens this year’s New York Film Festival with a seriocomic drama about friendship in the midst of a topical treatment of the consequences and effects of war. With a script by Linklater and author Darryl Ponicsan, Last Flag Flying bridges the gap between Vietnam and Iraq, attempting to highlight the humor, pathos, and universality in soldiers’ experiences, in war and out of it.

The film opens in November 2003 with Larry “Doc” Shepherd (Steve Carell) visiting his Vietnam War buddy Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) at a dive bar that Sal runs in Norfolk, Virginia. After a night of boozy reminiscences, they take a quick trip upstate to see Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne), another old war buddy who’s reformed himself, gotten married, and become a pastor of a small church.

There, Doc finally explains why he sought out his old compatriots after so...