Say what you like about Paul Haggis's merits as a writer or director, but he sure does know how to bring together an impressive cast and, in some cases, how to elicit some of their finest work. In the Valley of Elah has generated a lot of buzz for Tommy Lee Jones, who plays the father of an American soldier who goes missing, and then turns up dead, after a tour of duty in Iraq. But while Jones clearly earns all his accolades, you cannot help but notice all the other actors who turn up for small-ish parts here and there: Susan Sarandon as Jones's wife, Josh Brolin as a sleazy police chief, even James Franco in a couple scenes as an army sergeant who answers the phones. (Did he have other scenes that ended up on the cutting-room floor?)

So, credit where credit is due. As Hank and Joan Deerfield, Jones and Sarandon do a masterful job of conveying the grief of two parents who have lost their child and don't know why he died. Actually, it's worse than that: we find out fairly early on that they have lost two children, because they had another son who died in an accident on an army base some years before. And beneath the grief, there is resentment, as Joan accuses her husband, a Vietnam vet, of inspiring her children to join the military and thereby put themselves in harm's way. But the bitter, ironic truth is that, while both of their sons died on Uncle Sam's payroll, neither of them was killed on the battlefield. They died when they should have been safe.

Tommy Lee Jones as Hank Deerfield

Tommy Lee Jones as Hank Deerfield

Their second son met a particularly gruesome fate—stabbed, dismembered, burned, and the pieces of his body left in a field to be pecked at by animals—so Hank sets out to find out who killed his boy. But everywhere he looks, there is bureaucratic wrangling and callous indifference. The police are happy to let the army claim jurisdiction over the case, and the army lieutenant (Jason Patric) in charge of the case only lets out so much information. So Hank takes matters into his own hands and turns to a local police officer, Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), for assistance—and she, in turn, has to deal with sexist colleagues and higher-ranking officers who are ex-military and therefore not inclined to help her interfere with the army.

Their investigation, and thus the film, paints an increasingly negative picture of the military in general, and even, alas, of Hank's son Mike (Jonathan Tucker). It turns out that Mike and his friends frequented strip joints and spent time with hookers back home, and they took drugs, tortured people and killed innocent civilians in Iraq; what's more, they documented at least some of their misdeeds with their cell-phone cameras. Indeed, nearly every soldier we meet turns out to be either a screw-up with something to hide or a bureaucrat who wants to keep things hidden.

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Susan Sarandon as Joan Deerfield

Susan Sarandon as Joan Deerfield

Lest we miss the point, Haggis throws in a few extra elements to ram home the idea that there is something profoundly wrong with the military. Emily alludes to the trauma her father experienced in war, and the only identifiably married soldier we encounter—someone not directly involved with the murder case—turns out to be at least as messed up as the other, single and unattached, soldiers.

But there's a problem with this relentlessly negative portrayal. Hank is supposed to be the pair of eyes through which we encounter all these problems; he is the character who undergoes a profound shift in sensibility as a result of what he sees; he is the character who is supposed to embody America's disillusionment with the Iraq War. But he has served in the army, too—in Vietnam, no less—so he shouldn't be surprised by the fact that soldiers are capable of this sort of behavior. Indeed, the traumas and atrocities that we see here took place even in so-called "good wars"—a fact that Haggis already rammed home in his screenplays for Clint Eastwood's World War II epics Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima.

Charlize Theron as Detective Emily Sanders

Charlize Theron as Detective Emily Sanders

We are told that Mike and his comrades served together in Bosnia before they were stationed in Iraq. So we don't even need to appeal to the precedent of previous generations of conflict; all we need to do is ask what it is in the personal experience of these characters that makes Iraq such a uniquely worse place than, say, the Balkans. And the film offers no hint, beyond one character's casual assertion that Iraq is "f---ed up." This is not exactly as helpful or insightful as it could be.

Haggis is capable of writing decent scenes that allow for some measure of humanity to come through. Hank has a believable, but brief, reunion with an old army buddy in a diner, and their encounter suggests all sorts of things about their characters and the relationship between male camaraderie and family obligations. Later, Hank goes to Emily's place for dinner and later tells a bedtime story to her son, David (Devin Brochu)—and there's something about a gruff, means-business, suffer-no-fools guy like Jones trying to tell a story to an inquisitive child that is endearingly funny.

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Hank reads a bedtime story to Emily's son (Devin Brochu)

Hank reads a bedtime story to Emily's son (Devin Brochu)

Incidentally, Hank begins the bedtime ritual by thumbing through David's copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but he says he doesn't understand a word of it. So instead, he tells David a Bible story—the story of David and Goliath. This is where the movie gets its title; the valley of Elah is the place where the Israelites met the Philistines in battle. And it's not exactly clear why the movie has this title. Every time the Bible story comes up in this film, it is connected somehow to the conquering of fear. But the only person who expresses fear in any significant way is Hank's son Mike, in the Iraq-set flashbacks. And it is not clear what he should have done if he had conquered it. Kill a giant? But who? Quit the army? David didn't do that.

And so Haggis's screenplay veers between being too obtuse and elliptical on the one hand, and too sharp and on-the-nose on the other. He also gives in to the same error that marred Crash, his previous directorial effort: after setting up certain characters as one thing, he flips them over like pancakes and reveals them to be something else, and instead of depth or complexity, what you sense is a director pushing your buttons. But where Crash had a certain urgency, Elah wallows in malaise, and as a result it lacks the energy required to be as preachy as you suspect it wants to be; when the final scene comes and ends the film on a politically provocative note, it feels tacked on. Surely the talented actors, and the broader cultural discussion of which this film is a part, deserve better.

Talk About It

Discussion starters
  1. Hank says the lesson of the story of David and Goliath is that David conquered his fear. What do you think the lesson of that story is? How does it apply to this film? How would you apply the Bible story to the current political situation?
  2. What do you make of the film's portrayal of the military? Is it possible to be a soldier and a good man? How, or why not? What about the armies in the Bible, such as the armies that David led? What should the movie's soldiers do differently?
  3. How would you react if you learned the things about your son that Hank learns about his? Would they change what you thought of him? How you loved him? Would you be inclined to blame others—family, friends, colleagues, other soldiers—for influencing him? Would you blame yourself? Would you hold him responsible for himself?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

In the Valley of Elah is rated R for violent and disturbing content (including images of dismembered and charred corpses), language (a few dozen four-letter words, the name Christ taken in vain several times) and some sexuality/nudity (including three or four scenes set in bars with strippers and a topless barmaid).

What other Christian critics are saying:

In the Valley of Elah
Our Rating
2 Stars - Fair
Average Rating
 
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Mpaa Rating
R (for violent and disturbing content, language and some sexuality/nudity)
Genre
Directed By
Paul Haggis
Run Time
2 hours 1 minute
Cast
Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jonathan Tucker
Theatre Release
September 28, 2007 by Warner Independent Pictures
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