Film Details:
In The Valley Of Elah (15)
Drama(2007)
121mins US
Director: Paul Haggis
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Susan Sarandon, James Franco

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LondonNet Film Review
In The Valley Of Elah

The true cost of war is incalculable...

It is not just astronomical military budgets and steadily rising death tolls; nor does it begin and end on the battlefield. For the brave men and women who survive their arduous tours of duty, the physical and emotional scars may never heal. Grief and guilt gnaw at the soul, intermingled with nightmarish flashbacks to split-second decisions made in the heat of conflict: an instinctive pull of a trigger than can save one life and crudely terminate another.

In The Valley Of Elah is a slow-burning thriller inspired by true events, centred on a troubled young soldier, who goes missing after he returns from an extended stint in Iraq. Terrible secrets, borne by the Army enlistee and his brothers in arms, culminate in tragedy, begging provocative questions about the shades of morality in a war zone.

Writer-director Paul Haggis, who famously led Crash to a shock Best Picture victory at the Oscars over Brokeback Mountain, struggles to generate sufficient dramatic momentum to carry the film through two hours. His script spends too long fretting over a series of fragmented mobile 'phone video messages, which hold the key to the mystery, and too little on the characters.

Shortly after a tour of duty in the Middle East, Specialist Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker) goes AWOL from his base and his gruff father, retired military police officer Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), travels to Fort Rudd to investigate. While Hank's wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) waits nervously for news, her husband seeks answers from Mike's superior Sergeant Carnelli (James Franco) and military policeman Lieutenant Kirklander (Jason Patric). They seem unconcerned by the boy's absence and so Hank turns to local cop, Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), a single mother weathering the storm of institutionalized sexism.

When Mike's charred remains are discovered on wasteland, and the military glosses over the facts, the resourceful father is outraged. "My son just spent 18 months bringing democracy to a hell hole and serving his country. He deserves better than this!" So Hank turns private eye, working alongside Detective Sanders to unearth the truth, which might have been better left dead and buried on the streets of Iraq.

In The Valley Of Elah has echoes of Crash in the use of aerial tracking shots of the crime scene, and the unnecessary closing image set to strains of a mournful ballad. Jones brings a rugged determination to his war-horse father, who tramples authority to honour his son's memory. Theron's ballsy heroine is underwritten and Sarandon, Patric and co make the most of their characters, who remain on the periphery. The titular biblical reference - the battleground for David's victory over Goliath - translates as a rather heavy-handed metaphor for one man's dogged struggle against military giants, who would rather sweep the truth under the carpet than admit culpability. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

Sam Cannon

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