Review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) by Brian R — 21 May 2012

Oh my God. What a great film from Paul Haggis. This man has written let's see..."Million Dollar Baby", "Casino Royale", "Flags Of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" and directed "Crash". In this film Haggis excells high as a filmmaker "In The Valley Of Elah" a film that moved me and drained me throughout.

In one of his best performances Tommy Lee Jones plays a Vietnam veteran named Hank Deerfield, now hauling gravel in Tennessee. He gets a call from the Army that his son Mike, just returned from a tour in Iraq, is AWOL from his squad at Fort Rudd. That sounds wrong. He tells his wife, Joan (Susan Sarandon), that he's going to drive down there and take a look into things. He checks into a shabby motel. His journey in the area takes him into topless bars, restaurants, the local police station, the base military police operation and a morgue where he's shown something cut into pieces and burned, and he IDs the remains as his son. Looking through his son's effects, he asks as a distraction if can have his Bible, while he's pocketing his son's cell phone. It's been nearly destroyed by heat, but a friendly technician salvages some video from it, filled with junk artifacts but still retaining glimpses of what it recorded on video: glimpses of hell.

The cast is top notch and believable 100 percent. Tommy Lee Jones shines as Hank but I was particularly impressed with Charlize Theron (I don't like her to be honest) as police detective Emily Sanders who is never seen as a sex symbol or a romance object, she is a real woman just trying to do her job and raise her child. Susan Suranadon is heartbreaking as Deerfield's wife and Jason Patric as a sly homicide detective.

This movie reminds me of the 1956 film "The Searchers" with John Wayne on his search for his neice Debbie but Haggis hasn't ripped off that film. Oh no. Haggis brings so much emotional depth and confidence to his drama pic one can't help but notice and just again be mesmerized by the film's tone. This is a great film, a true film and a treasure.