Elah Review

I've had In the Valley of Elah on my "Netflix stack" for over a week now, but I've been putting off watching it until I was in the right mood. I was warned by a friend that after seeing it, "you'll need a hug." It took until today for me to decide to embrace a movie that was that much of a downer.

It turns out it's probably not that grim -- but it's certainly a long way from anything nice. It's the story of the father of a soldier who has come back from a tour of duty in Iraq and has gone missing from his army base. The father, played by Tommy Lee Jones, was a soldier himself many years ago, and sets out on a parental crusade to find out what happened to his son.

More than the specifics of the plot, the movie is really an anti-war movie, in that it shows the psychological toll on soldiers after they return from the battlefield. But to the detriment of the film, I think it really only "bookends" the two hours with this message. The movie starts strong, and ends very strong with the points it wants to make.

In the middle, however, it sort of loses its way -- at least, thematically. The lion's share of the movie is really just a version of a TV crime procedural drama, a mostly plot-driven affair that follows the father as he investigates the fate of his son. The message usually gets set aside in favor of a straight-up telling of the tale.

But it is at least interesting the whole time, and that's thanks largely to the quality cast. Charlize Theron and Jason Patric play key roles; Susan Sarandon appears as the missing soldier's mother; James Franco and Josh Brolin appear in what amount to cameo roles -- but both are effective. They're all led by director Paul Haggis, who helped the characters of the labyrinthine movie Crash pop, and he does the same here. They're sometimes just relegated to walking us through the evidence, but they do have personalities.

Ultimately, the movie does get to a good place, and is worth seeing overall. But I would have wished for it to be a little more even throughout. I rate it a B-.