In the Valley of Elah (2007)

Director: Paul Haggis

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones as Hank Deerfield, Charlize Theron as Det. Emily Sanders, Jason Patric as Lt. Kirklander, Susan Sarandon as Joan Deerfield, James Franco as Sgt. Dan Carnelli, Barry Corbin as Arnold Bickman, Josh Brolin as Chief Buchwald, Frances Fisher as Evie, Wes Chatham as Cpl. Steve Penning, Jake McLaughlin as Spc. Gordon Bonner, Mehcad Brooks as Spc. Ennis Long, Jonathan Tucker as Spc. Mike Deerfield, Wayne Duvall as Detective Nugent, Victor Wolf as Pvt. Robert Ortiez, Brent Briscoe as Detective Hodge

The big movies about the Vietnam war -- Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter,
Full Metal Jacket -- didn't reach the screen until about five years
after the war ended. But movies dealing with Iraq and terrorism are
cropping up all over even as this war still rages.

What exactly that means is hard to know, but it would seem to indicate
that no matter which side of the issue they come down on, the
filmmakers are willing to risk alienating about half the potential
audience in an America more polarized today than at any point in our
history.

"In the Valley of Elah" treads lightly on the politics for most of the
movie, concentrating on the unfolding mystery of what happened to a
young soldier who vanishes shortly after returning from a tour of duty
in Iraq. Looking for answers are his father, a former sergeant in the
Army's Criminal Investigation Division, and a young female civilian
detective, who gets involved in the case, gets bounced off in a
jurisdictional dispute, but winds up back on the case when its
determined the crime took place off military property.

While director Paul Haggis gets uniformly good performances out of all
the characters, the movie belongs to Tommy Lee Jones as the grieving
father and Charlize Theron as the determined detective. Both turn in
outstanding performances. Jones shines, playing a man who has spent his
life holding in his emotions and can't change now, even as his world
falls apart. Theron radiates strength as a woman trying to survive in a
sexist police department where all her male colleagues are certain she
slept her way into her detective's job. That is somewhat important to
the story, because the movie provides a look into the lower class white
community that provides the bulk of the recruits in the all volunteer
army.

None of this really deals with the politics of the war, though, and it
is not until the very end of the film that politics come into play, and
even there, it is handled with great care. The message is more about
the kind of war America finds itself fighting today and what that type
of combat does to the men who engage in it. Unlike world wars one and
two, Vietnam and Iraq are not wars between easily recognized enemies.
We are not battling the Germans or the Japanese. In both Nam and Iraq,
Americans find it is difficult to tell friend from foe. That means they
often must make snap decisions that sometimes determine whether they
themselves live or die. Needless to say, their decisions also determine
the fate of the people in the sights of their weapons..

"In the Valley of Elah" does an excellent job of showing that post
traumatic stress syndrome is not an oddity, but rather a growing
problem in an army of young men whose job requires them to be quick on
the trigger.

Every American should see this movie and then think long and hard about
it.