Review of In the Valley of Elah (2007) by Derek A — 28 Sep 2008

This film is loosely based off a true story... I say loosely because after watching this movie I was compelled to do some research about the true events. What I found was that the movie misrepresented the true story drastically.

Leave it to Hollywood to take a sad story and claim to pay "homage" to this misfortuned soldier and his family by telling the world what really happened... yet the end result is a film that chronicles nothing about the true events. Damn you Hollywood....

Had I not found out about this, I would've given this movie much higher accolades. Hell, they didn't even use the victim's real name in the movie! The way in which he was killed, and even the motives were all completely different. The only resemblance the film holds to the real event is that a soldier who returned from Iraq was killed by his fellow soldiers. I won't go into any more details because I dont' want to spoil the movie for anyone.

If you can go into this movie knowing it's not based on a true story, you might be able to enjoy it more. Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron were excellent together in this film. Susan Sarandon was amazing as well. This film is a thriller and will leave you guessing to the end... but for me at least, all the good things I liked about this movie were completely deflated when I found out the truth about the events.

Still a solid film, and worth a watch, especially if you enjoyed other war-based dramas like Stop Loss or Home of the Brave.