Fighting his own war
Directed by Paul Haggis, written by Haggis and Mark Boal, 120 minutes, rated R.
The new Paul Haggis movie, "In the Valley of Elah," stars Tommy Lee Jones in an Academy Award-worthy performance as Hank Deerfield, a Vietnam veteran and former military police officer who wakes one morning to learn that his son Mike (Jonathan Tucker) has returned home from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Normally, this would be cause for celebration. Instead, it's cause for alarm, particularly since Mike is missing and the military is wondering whether Hank knows where his son is. Since he doesn't know, it's made clear to him that if somebody doesn't find Mike soon, he'll officially be charged with going AWOL.
But not if Hank has anything to do with it.
Launching into action, he packs his bags (crisp, neat, not a wrinkle in sight--this man is military to the core), says goodbye to his wife (Susan Sarandon) and leaves their Tennessee home for New Mexico, where Mike is stationed. It’s there that he begins the long and disturbing next stage of his life, which wends around the sort of dark corners no parent wants to travel.
Upon his arrival in New Mexico, unwanted truths surface about Mike as Hank starts to ask questions about his disappearance.
He learns that Mike favored strip clubs, which Hank visits, his rutted roadmap of a face sinking south with disapproval. On Mike’s cell phone, which Hank steals, he uncovers recorded video of Mike’s time in Iraq, which leads to all sorts of disturbing insights as Hank begins to question whether he knew his son at all. And then there's Mike himself, who eventually turns up dead in a field on the outskirts of the military base, his dismembered body burned beyond recognition.
Who killed him? That’s the question that burns at the heart of this movie, with Haggis and his co-writer, Mark Boal, building a compelling mystery around a character-driven film laced with anti-war undertones.
In a solid performance is Charlize Theron as Emily Sanders, the police detective who comes to help Hank. She does so reluctantly at first, but then with an increased fierceness that surprises her male colleagues, who resent her for being the only female on the force, and also a military detective played by Jason Patric, who resents her because he's trying to contain a possible scandal.
In some ways, the movie is reminiscent of Paul Schrader's 1979 film "Hardcore," which starred George C. Scott as a conservative father who went looking for his missing daughter in California, only to find in the sordid underbelly of the adult film business that she had disappeared into the blue world of porn films. Whereas that movie gave itself over too often to melodrama, "Elah" resists, which can't be said for Haggis' last movie, the cheaply obvious yet Academy Award-winning "Crash."
"Elah" is a major improvement over that film, and while you sometimes feel its length, stick with it--its in its layers that the movie comes alive, revealing character and clues with fleeting, passing asides. Key to its success is that the movie ties its emotions to the gradually crumbling rock that is Tommy Lee Jones' face. That's a shrewd move, particularly since in that face are eyes that come to project so much--sorrow, grief, rage, despair--amid a stoic mug that was trained long ago to reveal nothing, and so it doesn't.
At least for awhile.
Grade: B+
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