Review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) by Dawdlingpoet — 25 Nov 2021

This is a film that is primarily anti-war in tone. Tommy Lee Jones gives a decent performance as the main character, a father trying to figure out what happened to his son after he returned home from serving on the front line. He does well coming across as a strong, determined father and I also think Charlize Theron did well as the police detective (detective Emily Sanders), who gets a fair bit of flack from her colleagues, to put it one way. The two of them give pretty decent performances, although I got a bit confused by some of the plot details. The general anti-war sentiment comes across pretty clearly though.

I felt that this was generally a decent film, although I did feel it was missing something but im not entirely sure what that is. There are some plot twists but it did feel to me that it was lacking in substance somehow. However, I wouldn't say its a bad film...I just can't quite say I'd recommend it as such, no.