Although the 2007 Paul Haggis film In the Valley of Elah was generally well received by critics, I didn’t really hear much buzz about it (until Oscar time). I think that probably had to do with the fact that it was released and marketed under the Warner Independent Pictures label, though how a movie that has four major Oscar winners attached to it can be considered “independent” I’ll never know.
At any rate, I decided to rent this film last weekend, mostly because of the star power of the cast. I didn’t know a thing about what the plot entailed, nor did I bother checking before I rented it. I figured the film would be good no matter what the subject, and I was right.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Tommy Lee Jones stars as Hank Deerfield, a Vietnam War veteran who served as an investigator in the Army. Hank’s two sons followed in his footsteps: one has already died in service, and the other is on active duty in Iraq.
One morning, Hank gets a phone call from someone at his son’s base in America. The unit has been back home for a couple of weeks now, but Mike (played by Jonathan Tucker) has gone AWOL. The officer on the phone wants to know if Hank has seen or been in contact with Mike recently.
Hank doesn’t think this sounds like something his son would do, so he tells wife Joan (Susan Sarandon) that he’s going to go to the base to check things out. He takes a look at Mike’s barracks, steals his cell phone, and pays a tech to pull images and videos off the damaged data card. The pictures and videos are just incomplete portraits of what Mike went through in Iraq, but they’re enough to convince Hank that his son was the victim of foul play.
Next, Hank goes to the local police department where he talks to the only female detective on the squad. Det. Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) sympathizes with Hank’s plight, but can’t do anything to help. The Army handles missing persons cases that involve soldiers.
Things change when Mike’s remains are found in a field. He was dismembered and his remains were burned, which makes Army investigators think his murder was drug-related. Hank is not satisfied with that answer, so he decides to make a more thorough investigation on his own. Of course, he can only get so far as a civilian, which is why he has to persuade Det. Sanders to continue helping him.
Sanders agrees, so the rest of the film shows Hank’s relentless pursuit of the truth as he doggedly tries to find out what really happened to Mike.
My Reaction: I know that most people would probably come away from In the Valley of Elah feeling some kind of anti-war sentiment, since that was obviously one of the filmmakers’ intentions. However, I chose to ignore the larger political issues that lurk just beneath the surface of the film and instead just focus on the story that was actually told.
I thought the story was very engrossing, mostly because of the unconventional way in which it was told. It was interesting that viewers got to learn about Mike only from the videos and pictures on his cell phone, both of which painted an increasingly disturbing picture of the man he was becoming due to the situation he was in.
Tommy Lee Jones was brilliant as Hank Deerfield. I loved how calm and collected he appeared to be on the outside, while he was all along being driven by a quiet desperation to find out the real answers about his son. My heart broke for Hank as he watched Mike’s videos. He could see that his son was in trouble, that Mike was losing hold of his humanity while in Iraq, yet Hank could do nothing for his boy. Jones conveyed that helplessness and frustration perfectly, often without even saying a word.
Charlize Theron provided another bright spot in the film. I enjoyed her character’s no-nonsense approach to Hank’s case, and I also liked how Haggis refrained from making Det. Sanders into a total cliché. It would have been very easy to have her walk around with a permanent chip on her shoulder because of the way the male detectives treated her, but instead of doing that, Haggis allowed Sanders to just ignore the crap and continue doing her job.
In the Valley of Elah was not a perfect film by any means. There were a few boring patches here and there, and some of the events weren’t all that believable (would a soldier really be recording video as he and his unit are checking a house to see if there are any armed insurgents left?), but the work as a whole was very good. I give it 7.0 stars out of 10.