Review

Review Date: 30-September-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Junk

In the Valley of Elah (2007)

The title of Paul Haggis' new film refers to the place where David once bested Goliath. It harkens back to a time when warfare had rules like a challenge between champions, and boys could perform acts of bravery preserved for the admiration of millennia. Haggis contrasts such a time and such deeds with the type of warfare that America now wages in Iraq, in which young men learn to do things nobody should ever hear about.

Haggis has been enjoying a heyday through the success of "Million Dollar Baby" (which he wrote) and "Crash" (which he wrote and directed, as with this film), but "In the Valley of Elah" represents a backslide in his development. Long stretches of the movie can only be described as boring, and the characters feel like props instead of living, breathing people. The story unfolds as a whodunit, following a former Army sergeant (Tommy Lee Jones) in search of a son who disappeared from his barracks after returning from Iraq. The search becomes less private and more messy when a mutilated body is found and the case bounces between the police and the Army. Some murder mysteries suggest the complexities of the human experience, winding their way from one choice and clue to the next. This looks like a series of inorganic scenes assembled for a particular end. In dealing with death, it lacks real life.

En route to its end, the picture defines military culture as one where machismo is always in danger of overstepping its bounds. For one thing, it is hard on women like the dead boy's mother, played briefly but gravely by Susan Sarandon, and the struggling cop played by Charlize Theron. The latter is the movie's weakest link due to both writing and casting. Whereas the father's ordeals are perceptible in Jones' face, the deep lines naturally expressing the trial of living, Theron's just-released-from-acting-school correctness contributes to the sanitized effect of the proceedings. She spends most of the film in a huff over some injustice which barely advances the plot, an overextended character whose presence and problems seem incidental.

Because ultimately, it is not just women who are alienated by the modern military order but old-school soldiers as well. The point is reached when the father realizes that he lost his son even before the boy's death. Lost him to the inhumanity of our present war, a power so malignant it can destroy a person's soul and a nation's dignity. Kudos to Haggis for making this statement. May another filmmaker follow suit with more warm-blooded inspiration.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.