Writer-director Paul Haggis must be the most frustrating American filmmaker working today. Except for his beautifully judged script for Million Dollar Baby, the man never knows when enough’s enough, as the over-egged Crash and Flags of Our Fathers demonstrated. His latest, In the Valley of Elah is further proof that Haggis is four-fifths genius and one-fifth hack.
Tommy Lee Jones is Hank Deerfield, a former military policeman, who investigates the disappearance of his son Michael, a soldier just back from Iraq. The question is not whether the boy has come to a sticky end – but how and why, and who’s responsible.
Haggis uses this mystery and numerous red herrings to cannily explore issues arising from the war in Iraq. This is not another autopsy on the rightness or wrongness of the American invasion and occupation. Rather it’s a close-up on the ragged scar that war leaves on soldiers’ souls. And more broadly, it’s an examination of how the war is damaging American communities.
Haggis’s movie is at its best when it calmly and rationally looks at soldiers’ drug use, casual war crimes, and the cycles of violence they bring home with them.
Tommy Lee Jones is sublime as the patriotic American elder who’s slowly having the wool removed from his eyes. There’s also strong support from Charlize Theron as the dogged detective and single mother, and from Jason Patric as her opposite number on the military base.
As a thriller and mystery, In the Valley of Elah doesn’t pull out any major tricks, but it is a solid, involving procedural that scores for subverting our expectations about the reasons for the crime.
Haggis makes his thoughtful points dramatically and powerfully. It’s a shame that towards the end of the film, he’s not convinced that he’s convinced us – so he rubs our noses in some pretty vulgar symbolism. And this condescension lessens the overall impact of the film.
Regardless of Haggis’ late-film mistakes, this is the best drama yet about the American experience of Iraq and rates four stars. In the Valley of Elah is in cinemas now.
