Film Review: In The Valley of Elah

Liverpool Daily Post

In The Valley of Elah
Cert. 15, 124 mins
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Susan Sarandon, James Franco, Barry Corbin, Josh Brolin, Frances Fisher, Wes Chatham, Jake McLaughlin, Mehcad Brooks
Directed by Paul Haggis

I THOUGHT it was a Biblical epic when I first heard the title, the Valley of Elah being the place where David met Goliath.

There is a reference to that incident in the movie, but this is a contemporary story and a tough one at that.

Based on real events, it follows the case of an American soldier who went missing shortly after returning from the Iraq war.

It is a sort of whodunit with a touch of CSI, a modern tale of war and trauma, a family story and, above all, a search for justice.

As such, it wanders all over the place and you never know where it is going to end.

There are corkscrew twists, powerful performances and a sense of desperation. It’s a typical feel-bad movie.

Written by Mark Boal (on whose Playboy story the film is based), and Paul Haggis (who also directs), In The Valley of Elah is held together by its central performance of Oscar- nominated Tommy Lee Jones.

In a role originally planned for Clint Eastwood (who eerily has the same battered good looks of Jones), Jones plays a father who is woken early one morning with news that his soldier son has gone AWOL.

This comes as a surprise to Jones’s character, Hank, who thought his son was still in Iraq.

He had not heard from him, which he knew he would if he had returned.

As a former Army man himself and a military policeman at that, a weary Jones begins to investigate, generally coming up against a blank wall.

The people he used to know in the Army are no longer in position, and those who are appear unwilling to help.

He eventually seeks assistance from a female police detective (Charlize Theron, on good form) whose male colleagues give her all the silly cases to investigate.

Eventually, the son turns up dead – murdered – on Army property, leaving the Army to investigate and do a cover-up job.

Jones and Theron join forces and the truth finally emerges. Jones is excellent in the lead, and an underused Susan Sarandon, left, emotes well as his wife.

It is a rambling tale, but well told, and ultimately quite moving.