In the Valley of Elah [Blu-ray]

Gives new insight into how the troops come home still wired to kill. The acting is superb, especially Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron. The story is definitely 5 star worthy. I guess you could call it a tragedy for real. An eye-opener for sure.One caveat or perhaps a plus: the disc is two-sided, one side in regular DVD and the other side in HD DVD, a totally new format that my recently purchased DVD player couldn't handle. The disc came in a red case, same size as a regular Blu-Ray case but red. If you have an HD DVD player you can see it in HD DVD; otherwise you just watch it in DVD, which I suppose is perhaps still Blu-Ray, or perhaps just regular DVD. It played fine, not to worry.

An excellent mystery, who-done-it, police procedural about an Iraqui vet who goes missing after returning home. His father, a Viet Nam vet, goes searching for him. The ending was chilling. The father undergoes a change. Very well done. Tommy Lee Jones was outstanding but then so was everyone else. An excellent film.

Many people try and watch "a movie based on actual events" like it portrays facts and the truth. Nope, it's a movie, not a documentary. I compare all "movies" to novels, and those doing the writing can take all the artistic license they want with the facts and storyboard. Documentaries I compare to non-fiction, and the writers better get the facts straight, making clear distinctions between truth and conjecture. "In the Valley of Elah" is a movie, not a documentary.The "actual events" upon which the movie is based are atrocious and heartbreaking. The same characterization occurs in the movie. The full facts of the actual murder were never revealed by the court. The movie wraps things up a little too quickly. Although there is quite a bit of artistic license in the movie, it wove many of the actual facts into the plot. That said, the characters were strong, the plot patiently revealed, and the message clear about how the inhumanity of war can change people.Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon were the perfect decades married couple. Tommy Lee's character and his calculating patience was powerful. Charlize Theron, with bare makeup, was outstanding as the woman trying to make her mark in a man's world.As a veteran, what I found refreshing was the underlying theme of the movie; the contrasting expectations of soldiers brutally adapting on the battlefield with their peaceful adaptation back into safety and security after a brief 24 hour flight home. As anyone can tell you who has faced the continuous and indifferent threat of death, that transition takes time.

I'll admit I was a little leary about this movie. I had never heard of it. But it starred Tommy Lee Jones; who, in my humble opinion, is one of the finest actors in America. The film has so many layers. I've seen reviews that stated that Tommy Lee's performance was wooden and lacked emotion. To me, he was more like a man that was keeping his emotions barely at bay. He wanted to understand why his son was brutally murdered and mutilated. Sure, he could have been screaming and yelling at everyone, but never gets anyone anywhere. Most people that have served in the military knows that.Mr. Jones is surrounded by a great cast. Charlize Theron as a cop that people think can't handle anything besides domestic disputes and lost dogs, Susan Sarandon as the mother who has lost one son already and has just lost her second son. Even Jason Patrick turns in a great performance as a representative of the JAG. All turned in above the bar performances.The plot is based on an actual event. This brings a sense of realism to the movie. I mean, let's face, it's hard to find a character driven mystery anymore. It seems that all Hollywood wants to do it spit out movies that compete with each other as to who can create the largest explosion or highest body count. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy these as much as the next guy. But when a film like this comes along, it should be pushed and advertised with the same zeal.This movie definitely goes on my list of the Best Movies You've Never Heard Of.

This movie fell a little short because of the script.. the acting was top notch though and that brought this movie through. The movie has good premise, to me it just wasn't presented well. Be you're own judge of it though. It's not a bad flick, just to me it fell a little short of what it could have been

It's a good movie - I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. It moves slow, but it does move. There's no really spectacular, stand out moment to the movie, nothing instantly memorable. And while it's about people returning from the battlefield, what they've seen and done, how they can't adjust to 'civilian' life, it doesn't really touch on any of that except briefly; it dances around the subject. There's no lecturing on any one subject, which is good, but on the other hand it doesn't seem to pay any attention to any one subject. But then, the movie does focus on the people involved, and in that it does a good job.Tommy Lee Jones is one of those that for me are hit or miss - I like him in some things (such as " The Fugitive " or " M.I.B. "), don't like him in others. He does a good job here - the role fits him. Charlize Theron... she's usually very good, and she is in this as well. She can be a chameleon, fitting into the part, but it doesn't quite feel like she fit into this - she tries damn hard, but it just misses by a hair. Plus she's just too damn good looking for the role. Susan Sarandon barely has much of a part in this, but she fits right into it - very good, very well done. Reviews, etc have mentioned Josh Brolin - probably because he's a 'name', because he has less than five minutes of screen time in this. Basic stuff, and I guess he does it well enough.It's something that I'm glad I've seen, and that I'll probably watch again at some point. It's worth what I paid for it, and that's all that can really be said.

A good film, which stands up to repeated viewing, but is not for everyone.Some reviewers on Amazon misunderstand what kind of film this is meant to be; the description of it on the cover as a 'thriller' is a little misleading. The title 'In the Valley of Elah' (which I try to explain below) does not really tell us what the film is about either.It is part detective murder mystery, but do not expect a typical 'whodunit' entertainment.It is based on the true story of the Richard Davis murder case in the USA in 2003, with names and details changed. Much of the film's impact is from the depiction how a young man's death affects his parents. This has added poignancy because based on events that happened to real people.A retired military policeman finds that due to inadequate official investigation, he must re-use his old police skills to find the reason for the death of his son, who had served in the American army in Iraq, and came home from that conflict safely, only to be killed in unexplained but savage circumstances soon after his unit returned to the USA.This is not, therefore, a story that can have a truly happy ending. The father has already lost his son. All he can hope for is to know why.By the end the case is solved, but it does not feel like the usual 'detective triumphs, bad guys caught, case over, justice done' type of ending. More important is what the father, and though him, us, have learned about what happened to the dead son and his fellow soldiers in Iraq, and to Iraqis, and how even when home from the war, soldiers are not free of it.According to the DVD extras, many veterans and families of veterans, including relatives of some who took their own lives after returning from the Iraq war, said on seeing this film that it told the truth about the war in a way that we rarely hear it. This makes 'In the Valley of Elah' revealing and sometimes moving, but not a film for everyone.Of the three main actors, Susan Sarandon is excellent as the dead soldier's mother, although she only appears in the first half of the film.Her anguished cry to her husband 'Both of my boys, Hank? Couldn't you have left me even one?' when both her sons are killed after following their father's example and joining the army, and her simple question 'Is that all of him?', when she views her son's bones in the morgue, stay in the memory. Likewise, when following the morgue scene she and her husband walk in silence half the way down the corridor before simultaneously, without a word, stopping and putting their arms around each other.Charlize Theron, playing a detective, is also, as usual, good. As in her more famous  Monster [2003] [DVD ] and less well known  The Burning Plain [DVD ], she is not afraid to tackle sad and serious subjects and less obviously commercial projects, in between more mainstream and commercial films.Tommy Lee Jones, playing the father (a role originally intended for Clint Eastwood, who was unavailable), is also good. A few reviewers who call his performance 'wooden' probably misunderstand that he is meant to be portraying the kind of self-disciplined. dignified ex-military man who, while he has feelings, is not accustomed to displaying them by crying or seeking therapy. However, comparing him here, playing an aging ex-soldier forced to question some of his long-held beliefs and to confront violent criminal behaviour in peacetime, with Clint Eastwood doing much the same thing in  Gran Torino [DVD] [2009 ] or Michael Caine in the British film  Harry Brown [DVD ], Clint (and Michael) do it slightly better, or at least have slightly more screen presence.Although most of this film takes place in the USA, the story could not have arisen without the still controversial Iraq war. The film shows the bad effects, mental and physical, the war had on human beings, American and Iraqi.This is where the strange title 'In the Valley of Elah' is meant to come in. At one point we see a little boy being told the Bible story of how the shepherd boy David killed the mighty Goliath 'in the Valley of Elah'. According to the Special Features the implication is meant to be that American soldiers thought they would be like brave, resourceful, little David challenging big, bad, clumsy Goliath, but as they experienced the reality of patrolling in Iraq it became less clear if they were David, or Goliath. However, this is not clearly explained in the film.Strictly none of this proves whether the Iraq war was on balance worth fighting or not. That depends on whether the world would have been better or worse if the West had left Saddam Hussein's cruel and erratic dictatorship in control of Iraq indefintely. That is a question beyond the scope of this film and possibly beyond anyone's ability to answer.However, if that is starting to sound political, and politics is not your thing, do not let that put you off from watching this film.Nor indeed, if you are left-wing & poliitical, is it worth watching this film expecting to have your prejudices confirmed about 'Bush and Blair's illegal war for oil'. 'In the Valley of Elah' is not a political diatribe but about the risks of putting ordinary human beings under extraordinary pressures.It is not necessary to know much detail about the Iraq war to understand the film. However, it will help to understand how some of the soldier characters behave if you look up the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although this is also explained in passing in the quite extensive Special Features.If Amazon allowed, I would give this 4 and a half stars. As they do not, 5 stars is close enough. Monster [2003] [DVDThe Burning Plain [DVDGran Torino [DVD] [2009Harry Brown [DVD

This is a hugely underrated drama, probably undermined by gung-ho types who think a military story should be fiull of action, somethig this is not (with a certain exception). It is a subtle, beautifully filmed, and profound film about an ordinary ex-military father trying to underdtand the death of his son, a soldier just returned from Iraq. It pulls no punches, finding fault and exoneration equally. The action is superb, above all that of Tommy Lee Jones, whose face displays a range of emotions and attempts to blot out emotion. It seems half-way to be another tale of bringing to light an injustice and exposing it to the world in a courtroom, yet it certainly not that. Its many resolutions and concealed meanings add up to something less dramatic yet far more valuable. I recommend this is one of the best American films of its generation. It deserved an Oscar and did not get it bercause it is not packed with CGI and violence. The violence is there, but downplayed because, in a sense, that is njot what the film is about.

The parents of an young American soldier played by Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon who has survived a duty in war torn Iraq are anxiously looking forward to his imminent arrival but he never comes. His father, Hank Deerfield, himself a former soldier with experience in criminal investigation, sets out to find his son and is told by the soldiers in his outfit in New Mexico that after a night out together he went off and nobody knew where he now was. Deerfield then goes to the local police and speaks to a detective, played by Charlize Theron, but she does not place any significance in the soldier's disappearance and dismisses the case as not the result of a crime until body parts are found beside a road close to where the soldier was based which are identified as being his remains.The scenes in the hospital where the Deerfields view the body parts of their dead son are brilliantly conveyed by Jones and Sarandon and they start to believe that local drug pushers carried out the crime because their son had fallen in with them when he sought illicit drugs but later investigations reveal that what happened was infinitely more terrifying and unexpected and those responsible for the soldier's death were much closer to home. They also find out what took place in Iraq and how the horrific experiences of the soldiers there affected their behaviour when they returned home.Paul Haggis's film is an intelligent, sensitive and moving reconstruction of what war can do to some young men who go on active service in our names to places like Iraq. It is a fictionalised account of a real case where a soldier committed suicide shortly after returning from Iraq. In an excellent extra feature on the DVD that is well worth watching Haggis tells of when he went to a showing of his film to veterans and their families three women in the space of a few minutes told him that their husband or son had killed themselves not long after their return home. Veterans also told Haggis that his film mirrored what they experienced as a result of the post traumatic stress disorder they suffered because of their service in Iraq and that very little was being done for them by the military or anyone else to treat a serious psychological disorder than can have very severe consequences for them and others. It is apparent therefore that there must be many men who are walking time bombs waiting to explode if certain circumstances trigger this disorder who commit horrific acts of violence. Not surprisingly the US military did not exactly rush forward to help Haggis make the film and he expereinced considerable resistance when he asked them for assistance.The main players, Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon are outstanding in their roles and Haggis has made a memorable film that stays in the mind for a long while. It is a film that should be compulsory viewing by politicians who readily go to war without having the least idea of what physical and psychological damage it does to those who have to risk their lives for their country. Soldiers, sailors and airmen do not have a choice as to whether they should fight, who they should fight and how they should fight. They are just required to do as they are told and obey orders.

`In The Valley Elah' follows Tommy Lee Jones as he investigates the death of his son who has retuned from a tour of duty in Iraq and was murdered on a night out from base. Jones plays the roles of father perfectly and draws on his own military experience to aid Theron's character as she investigates the death further. The story is interspersed with footage the son shot in Iraq on his mobile phone, which fleshes the back story out and leads to a disquieting conclusion. Jones and Theron both acted superbly and Sarandon's role was shamefully small and with a steller supporting cast, the acting was amply taken care of. The storyline was ok, it lacked a certain tension you come to expect from these detective murder type stories, but it still managed to get you second guessing and intrigued whilst you watched. I feel Jones performance in `No Country For Old Men' to be better than this, but he certainly seems to be on a roll at the moment, picking class acting roles and performing them to perfection. For a couple of hours of solid acting and a fairly good murder thriller type story, set against the timely backdrop of the US war in Iraq, you can't do mush better than this. Worth a look.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

This is an interesting film; a good solid whodunit combined with a bit of Americans-in-combat-angst. Usually such a mixture would result in a mess, but in this case they fit together wonderfully well. There are lots of good performances linked to two main ones from the female cop (Charlize Theron) and Tommy Lee Jones as the institutionalised ex-military policeman. If the film has a theme (other than just a damned good plot) it is to do with the lack of male communication. This is admirably communicated by Jones in his at times robotic performance. Is it grief at the death of his son or is a life of polishing shoes and creasing trousers just ingrained, the story does not feel the need to tell us; which is very much part of the theme? But Jones suggests both; such that an apology or compliment from him is a high feature in the character development. The film lacks easy villains (though it tempts you to believe in them before removing the rug from beneath your feet). There are a number of times where the story looks to be over most tidily only for it to kick off again. Most films cannot manage one good ending, this one manages several.