In The Valley of Elah
(R)

E-mail this review to a friend » The mention of Paul Haggis's massive success provokes heated arguments among film lovers. Some will never forgive the writer-director for the stealth win of Crash as Best Picture at the 2006 Oscars, especially after Brokeback Mountain had won such acclaim, so many awards and big box-office. Those who have problems with the work of Haggis, a man who also won an Oscar for his Million Dollar Baby script, find his stuff to be preachy, heavy-handed and laden with politically correct liberal guilt. Some even begrudge Haggis for helping reignite the 007 franchise with the muscular, un-preachy Casino Royale, for chrissake.

Haggis isn't likely to win converts with In The Valley of Elah, a real life-inspired tale first published in Playboy, in which Tommy Lee Jones plays a spit-and-polish war vet who refuses to accept the military's explanation that his son has gone AWOL after a tour of duty in Iraq. Charlize Theron (in full-on, strained serious North Country mode) is the police detective and single mother who aids Jones' tireless and, ultimately, hand-rending investigation while Susan Sarandon plays Jones's understandably anxious wife.

The real subject matter here -- the tragic personal consequences of war and of knee-jerk "patriotism" -- tends to polarize people and, depending upon one's views on the war, some will find the film inflammatory while others will probably find it obvious and tepid. Although In the Valley of Elah doesn't always achieve its aspirations at balancing elements of a police procedural, a study in grief and a tribute to the men and women paying an extreme emotional price in a failed war, what you come away with is the quiet intensity and precision of Jones' performance as a father bound by tradition, decency and belief in the right of the military.

By Stephen Rebello

Photo credit: Lorey Sebastian ©2007 Elah Finance V.O.F.