In The Valley Of Elah (2008)

In the Valley of Elah

American filmmakers have shown a great willingness in recent months to confront the realities of their country’s continuing intervention in Iraq. Films such as Lions for Lambs, Redacted and Rendition have faced up to the realities of America’s war on terror and now, Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning director of Crash has thrown his hat into the ring, with In the Valley of Elah.

Tommy Lee Jones plays a retired military cop whose son (Jonathan Tucker) has gone missing after returning from a stint in Iraq. At first, it is assumed that he has gone AWOL but when his body turns up, Jones teams up with a single-mum police officer (Charlize Theron) to try and unravel the truth.

So far, so ordinary and to be fair, Elah rarely deviates from the standard police procedural template. With Crash, Haggis showed that subtlety is not exactly his trump card and in Elah, you are never far from being bludgeoned around the head with some quite heavy-handed symbolism. The film ticks along nicely and holds the attention throughout but were it not for one significant factor, Haggis could have had a disappointing failure on his hands.

His, and the film’s, saving grace is its leading man. In the last couple of years, Jones has developed from the go-to man for authority figures in films like The Fugitive into one of America’s finest actors. The same understated, unscrupulous tension which burned up the screen in No Country for Old Men is present throughout Elah and through an acting master-class, the search for the truth about his son becomes far tenser than this ordinary script should have allowed. For Jones alone, Elah is well worth watching.
 

Release Date: 26th May 2008
Director: Paul Haggis
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones,Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon
Running Time: 2hrs 1min (approx)
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Special Features: Featurette: After Iraq, Featurette: Coming Home, Interview With Paul Haggis, Additional Scenes, Trailer
RRP: £19.99

Reviewer: Alistaire Kleebauer