In the Valley of Elah

Jan 25 2008 by Evening Chronicle

(15, 121 mins) Thriller. Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jason Patric, Susan Sarandon. Director: Paul Haggis.

THE true cost of war is incalculable.

It is not just astronomical military budgets and rising death tolls. Nor does it begin and end on the battlefield.

For those who survive their tours of duty, the physical and emotional scars may never heal.

Grief and guilt gnaw at the soul, intermingled with nightmarish flashbacks to split-second decisions made in the heat of conflict: An instinctive pull of a trigger that can save one life and end another.

In The Valley Of Elah is a slow-burning thriller inspired by true events, centred on a troubled soldier, who goes missing after he returns from an extended stint in Iraq.

Terrible secrets, borne by the Army enlistee and his brothers in arms, culminate in tragedy, begging provocative questions about the shades of morality in a war zone.

Writer-director Paul Haggis, who led Crash to a Best Picture victory at the Oscars over Brokeback Mountain, struggles to generate sufficient dramatic momentum to carry the film through two hours. His script spends too long fretting over a series of fragmented mobile phone video messages, which hold the key to the mystery, and too little on the characters.

Shortly after a tour of duty in the Middle East, Specialist Mike Deerfield (Tucker) goes AWOL from his base and his gruff father, retired military police officer Hank Deerfield (Jones), travels to Fort Rudd to investigate.

While Hank’s wife Joan (Sarandon) waits for news, her husband seeks answers from Mike’s superior Sgt Carnelli (Franco) and military policeman Lieut Kirklander (Patric).

They seem unconcerned by the boy’s absence, so Hank turns to local cop, Detective Emily Sanders (Theron, pictured left), a single mother weathering the storm of institutionalised sexism.

When Mike’s remains are discovered on wasteland, and the military glosses over the facts, the resourceful father is outraged.

“My son just spent 18 months bringing democracy to a s***-hole and serving his country. He deserves better than this!”

So Hank turns private eye, working alongside Detective Sanders to unearth the truth, which might have been better left on the streets of Iraq.

In The Valley Of Elah has echoes of Crash in the use of aerial tracking shots of the crime scene, and the unnecessary closing image set to strains of a mournful ballad.

Jones brings a rugged determination to his war-horse father, who tramples authority to honour his son’s memory.

Theron’s heroine is underwritten and Sarandon, Patric and co make the most of their characters, who remain on the periphery.

The Biblical reference translates as a heavy-handed metaphor for one man’s struggle against military giants, who would rather sweep the truth under the carpet.

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.

SWEARING, NO SEX, VIOLENCE