Just perfect...

A lot of fun.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Released in 2007 and directed & written by Paul Haggis, "In the Valley of Elah" is a crime drama/mystery inspired by the real-life case of Richard T. Davis. The story revolves around an elderly Tennessee couple (Tommy Lee Jones & Susan Sarandon) who get word that their son has gone missing from his base in New Mexico shortly after his return from Iraq. A retired military investigator, Hank Deerfield (Jones) goes to the base to find out the awful truth. Charlize Theron plays the civilian detective near the base who tries to help Hank while Jason Patric plays the Army counterpart. Josh Brolin is on hand as the town police chief. This is a slow-burn mystery highlighted by great acting by the principles, especially Jones, and a thoroughly realistic story, which isn't surprising seeing as how it's based on true events. Speaking of which, I was surprised to find out that the basic details of the story are all accurate. The actual events took place in the Fort Benning area of Georgia rather than the fictitious Fort Rudd, NM.The movie's not anti-Iraq War, but rather anti-PTSD; it merely reveals the awful truth about war in general: When we send our young men off to far-off lands where brutal warfare is normal they can bring that desensitized mentality back with them where the barbaric behavior that might be acceptable in war is anything but normal or conducive to a successful life, to say the least. Add the idiocy of alcohol abuse to the mix of PTSD and the results almost certainly WON'T be good. The title refers to the valley where David, as a teen, fought and defeated the utterly intimidating Goliath from 1 Samuel 17. ADDITIONAL ACTORS: James Franco, Wes Chatham, Jake McLaughlin, Mehcad Brooks and Roman Arabia play soldiers who knew Deerfield's son while Frances Fisher has a curious cameo (you'll know what I mean).The film runs 121 minutes and was shot in Whiteville, Tennessee, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Morocco substituting for Iraq.GRADE: B

OK, but could have been a lot better. What should have a decent murder- mystery and human drama is sidetracked and eroded by the writer/director's clear enthusiasm to make an anti-war movie. Now, Paul Haggis is a good director (see Crash) and even better writer (Million Dollar Baby, Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Crash), but by deciding to add an anti-war slant he diluted his efforts. In order to accommodate this stance, plot holes developed and the movie became contrived and clichéd. While the ending should have been an emotional one, I ended up feeling betrayed and disappointed.Solid performances.

This is gonna have to take up some space in a way that some sites don't approve of, but just get ready to read. A director and writer like Paul Haggis cannot be meaningfully considered in a blurb or a broadside.First of all, where do people get the stones to carp that Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah" is 'slow' or 'heavy handed' or 'plodding' (some of the comments I have heard from 'movie' lovers, and some of which have been made at this site)? Paul Haggis does not make 'high octane fueled thrill rides', he makes films."Valley..." actually moves along at scene level at a brisk cinematic pace. The reality is that if you are a shallow viewer you will miss the meaning beneath the surface of individual scenes that seem completely ordinary or mundane. That abiding attention to the mundane is no doubt where viewers get the idea that what they are watching is 'plodding'.Haggis is one of our most gifted scenarists, screenwriters, and directors just in the technical sense, let alone his undeniable powers of narrative, theme, characterization, subtle conflict, and tone. Technically, his gift for writing brief yet meaningful scenes that accumulate in meaning and theme is very much on display in "Valley..." Mundane interior shots and mundane dialogue are centered but not the point.In a modicum of shots he enters a scene, focuses on only what moves the plot and conflict forward, and almost always exits one or two beats EARLY, sometimes providing only the merest hint of the point but always amplifying that point with the very next scene--accumulation as an art form similar to the work of Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums", (2001).Thus, Haggis works in scene clusters, in which meaning accumulates across sequences while brevity in any single scene drives the plot forward, sometimes mercilessly fast. The result is an uncanny ability to cut and pare down his scenario to the barest economy (the demand of all commercial first release theatrical film--in extreme shallowness we call this 'movie making', such as "Iron Man", and when done meaningfully as in "Million Dollar Baby" we call it cinema and give it an academy award. He cuts and pares down while also creating a mounting revelation of meaning, character, plot, tension, conflict, suspense, and even of theme.The "Valley..." sequence in which the father arrives at his son's military base and exchanges dialogue with on-duty personnel who knew the missing son seems throw-away, boring, but is structured eloquently to move us through a mise-en-scene that tells us crucial things about the son's character, his life, his associations, and the poverty of his (and all the other soldiers') emotional life.That poverty is immediately revealed as a clue to something being serious askew; a mystery takes initial shape here, while throw-away dialogue reveals something missing beneath the surface of the perfunctory politeness being offered by soldiers the father questions. The father sees even that sparseness to have been apparently further denuded--important things are missing and the father's theft of the phone from his son's possessions is covered up by the distraction of a boring conversation with a duty officer.The specter of a mystery, of suspense, pops a little bud out of the background here, with both an economy of words and of shots in a brief sequence.Haggis' scenarios carry an almost specter-like idea of content--the thematic ghost in the commercial cinematic machine. The opening sequence of "Casino Royal" (2006) is an example. The simple draftsmanship of this writer-director, visual and thematically, is a gift to American cinema. He doesn't write frenetic, action packed 'movies'. He writes and directs films. His most commercial works, "Crash" (2004--writer), "The Next Three Days (2010--director), and "Million Dollar Baby" (2004--writer), offer master classes in compact scene design, sequence, and accumulated meaning.His TV script work alone ("Mr. Sterling" and "Family Law") are a blueprint for some of the best written and most terse, concentrated script writing that has influenced critically acclaimed TV convention, while, hey, let's just remember, he is the first writer-director in American film academy history to write Oscar-winning Best Picture screenplays in two consecutive years.I'll stop there. I wouldn't want to take up TOO much space.

Every play/screenplay contains a mystery. David Mamet's credo. Haggis and Mark Boal know how to structure a story with plenty of mystery. Elah is one of the best treatments of Iraq subject matter you'll ever see. They tread some sensitive material and they know how to work a plot. Charlise Theron and Tommy Lee Jones are fascinating to watch, they are the synthesis of two types of acting: playing-against and underplay. They are the best at quiet aggression and anxiety. The film rides on a razor's edge and the cast couldn't be better at balance and restraint. Jason Patric and Josh Brolin submit a low-key intensity in their performances that is nerve-wracking. Great stuff. This film is not for everyone. If you like what the Bush administration accomplished with creating a war in Iraq, what it has done to our society and some of our young military men and women, this movie is stark, real, and unpleasant in it's duplicity of military duty and innate civil morality. You will feel caught in the vise along with the civilians and military men depicted. Ultimately, the film belongs to Jones. He is a father who must face the truth about his son's behavior in the war zone, and the truth of his murder by his own comrades. Theron and/or Jones should have won awards for their roles. Brilliant filmmaking supported by equally brilliant acting. Feature movie-making at its best. If you don't like this kind of story construction, watch television. Bite the bullet and sit through it. You owe it to so many who have served and been injured, physically and mentally, by our government in a false war that never should have been engaged.