In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Haggis
Written by	Paul Haggis Mark Boal (story by)
Produced by	Paul Haggis Bob Hayward
Starring	Tommy Lee Jones Charlize Theron Susan Sarandon Jason Patric James Franco
Cinematography	Roger Deakins
Edited by	Jo Francis
Music by	Mark Isham
Distributed by	Warner Independent
Release dates	September 14, 2007 (limited) September 28, 2007
Running time	121 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$23 million
Box office	Domestic $6,766,924 Worldwide $16,069,501

In the Valley of Elah is an Academy Award-nominated 2007 film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon.

Plot

Paul Haggis' In The Valley of Elah is based on actual events, and explores themes including the Iraq war, abuse of prisoners, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following active combat and portrays a father's hunt for his son's killers.

Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) is a retired army military police sergeant with experience investigating crimes. He learns that his son Mike has returned to America and has gone AWOL. Hank leaves, hoping to find his son.

Though hurrying to the army base, Hank takes the time to stop at the local school, where the United States Flag has mistakenly been hung upside down. Hank explains that the American standard hanging upside down is a sign of great distress, according to the United States Flag Code. He and the caretaker fix the flag before he continues on his way.

When he reaches the base, he meets with army personnel. He meets people who knew Mike but is unable to find any useful information at first.

He steals Mike's phone from his room and has it analyzed by a computer expert who tries to recover some damaged video clips from the phone. He pays the man $100 and awaits his reply by e-mail.

Most of his early investigations are fruitless, and he approaches the local police. He sees Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) dismiss a woman's concerns after her recently-returned husband (a veteran of the war) drowned their dog in the bathtub, in front of their son. She worries about how disturbed he may be, but Sanders tells her there is nothing she can do regarding the death of the dog, and sends the woman away, doing nothing to allay the wife's concerns. Later in the film Sanders is called to the woman's house; her husband has drowned her in the bathtub while their son was at his grandmother's house.

Hank finds little help from Det. Sanders and heads to a diner where he meets an old friend from Army CID who he has not seen in over fifteen years. After asking about his oldest son, Hank informs the him that he died serving in the 82nd Airborne while on maneuvers in a helicopter crash two years ago; he does not really discuss Mike. Hank arrives to his motel room to find some imperfect video from Mike's phone.

Meanwhile, the police are seen investigating a crime scene of a dismembered and burnt body. The police are very pleased to pass the investigation off to the military because the murder seemingly happened on land owned by the military.

Hank Deerfield is notified at his hotel room that the remains of his son Mike have been found. The officer is reluctant to offer more information but at Deerfield's insistence, he takes him to see his son's burnt and virtually unrecognizable remains (the officer mentions they were only able to identify Mike Deerfield from partial fingerprints).

Det. Sanders is reluctant to pass the crime off to the military, but is left with little choice. In the morgue, Hank is shown his son's remains and then asked if Mike was into drugs because they suspect he may have been murdered by a gang of Mexicans involved in smuggling heroin in from the middle east. A pipe was found under Mike's mattress.

Due to Hank's determination, Detective Sanders is forced to take Hank to the crime scene. He is able to find that the location of the killing occurred outside of military property by locating markings on the ground from where the body was dragged. Also, Detective Sanders mentioned a green car witnesses saw at the crime scene, but Hank points out that the car was most likely blue, as it would just appear green from a under the yellow street lamps.

Hank notifies his wife, Joan, of Mike's death. His wife is devastated and angry at losing two sons in the military. She tells Hank that he left Mike with little choice and that the young man would not have felt at all like a man if he didn't join the army.

After putting her son to bed, Det. Sanders looks over grisly crime scene photos while Hank examines video from Mike's phone; the video is still very fragmented. At work, Det. Sanders is given bad assignments mocking her expertise and the men in the force expect she has slept her way into her job. Whether or not she slept with him, she does have some pull with the chief who allows her to pursue the case, even though it looks badly on him having so many unsolved murders.

Hank and Det. Sanders continue to work together solving the case, and keep finding dead ends and twists and turns along the way. At first, they suspect Private Robert Ortiez, a Mexican-American soldier who may be involved in drugs. As Hank follows the police to his residence and watches them fail to apprehend him efficiently, Hank chases him down in the street, hits him with the open door of his truck and brutally assaults him, even hitting Det. Sanders in the process. Charges are not filed.

In interviewing the men that Mike was with that night, they find inconsistencies including the men going to a chicken restaurant and ordering only enough for three while there were four people. Signature discrepancies on credit slips etcetera, proved that the men were not telling the true story. After one of the men out with Mike committed suicide, it is interpreted by the military as the closest they will get to a confession. Hank and Emily are not satisfied.

The full story of the night is as follows: Mike and the men had been kicked out of a strip club after Mike became agitated and caused a disturbance. Afterwards, the men's fighting escalated, and as a by-product of Post Traumatic Stress, one of his fellow soldiers stabbed him over forty times. Another had the idea of dismembering and burning the body. Hungry, the men then went to eat.

Hank Deerfield apologized to the man he had beaten when he found that Ortiez was not responsible, and upon speaking to him found that Mike had struck a child with his Humvee in Iraq due to a standing order to keep driving if something gets in their way. This caused psychological problem for Mike who had called his father after the incident but neglected to give details. Hank thought his son was experiencing typical emotions associated with a tour of duty.

When the crime is finally solved, and the men from Mike's squadron are revealed as his killers, Hank heads home to find a flag his son sent in the mail with a picture of it flying with his squad in Iraq. Hank takes the flag to the school, where he flies it upside down; a sign that everything is not all right and the country is in distress. He duct tapes the ropes of the flag staff and instructs the school's custodian to leave it like that, even at night.

Cast

• Tommy Lee Jones ... Hank Deerfield
• Charlize Theron ... Det. Emily Sanders
• Jason Patric ... 1LT Kirklander
• Susan Sarandon ... Joan Deerfield
• James Franco ... SFC Dan Carnelli
• Barry Corbin ... Arnold Bickman
• Josh Brolin ... Chief Buchwald
• Frances Fisher ... Eve
• Wes Chatham ... CPL Steve Penning
• Jake McLaughlin ... SPC Gordon Bonner
• Mehcad Brooks ... SPC Ennis Long
• Jonathan Tucker ... SPC Mike "Doc" Deerfield
• Wayne Duvall ... Det. Nugent
• Victor Wolf ... PV2 Robert Ortiez
• Brent Briscoe ... Det. Hodge
• Greg Serano ... Det. Manny Nuñez
• Brent Sexton ... Lt. Burke
• Devin Brochu ... David Sanders
• Zoe Kazan ... Angie
• Glenn Taranto ... Det. Wayne
• Sean Huze ... Captain Jim Osher
• Pierre Barrera ... TD's bartender

Production

Factual basis

Although the story has been fictionalized and the names and location have been changed, the plot hews very closely to the story of Richard T. Davis, an Iraq War veteran murdered upon his return home in 2003. Richard Davis's father Lanny Davis, a former military police officer who mounted his own investigation into the crime like the Jones character, commented, "It's a strong movie and a good movie. And it's going to make a lot of people think."

A non-fiction book about the actual murder case, by author Cilla McCain, titled Murder in Baker Company: The Forgotten Soldier is slated for publication. A documentary based on McCain's research is also scheduled to begin production in January 2008 and will be funded in part by director Paul Haggis.

A 2004 report by Mark Boal in Playboy on Richard Davis's murder, entitled "Death and Dishonor", inspired Haggis. Davis's story was also told in an episode of the CBS News program 48 Hours Mystery.

The Richard Davis Foundation for Peace works on issues related to Davis's murder, such as improved screening of military recruits. It is compiling a list of suicides and murders connected to the Iraq War, for a memorial.

Screenplay and casting

Haggis initially approached Clint Eastwood to play the part of Hank Deerfield, which Haggis had written for him. Eastwood turned it down because he didn't want to act in any more films.

Release

The film premiered September 1, 2007 at the Venice Film Festival and was later shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. It opened in a somewhat limited release in the United States on September 14, 2007, eventually grossing $6.5 million domestically in theatrical rentals. It opened in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2008.

Critical reception

As of February 20 2008 on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 139 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 25 reviews.

Time magazine's Richard Corliss named the film one of the Top 10 Movies of 2007, ranking it at #8. In his review, Corliss praised the film as an improvement on Paul Haggis's Oscar-winning Crash, calling it "strong in the sleuthing, sobering in its political conclusions." Corliss singled out Tommy Lee Jones's performance, saying his "drained humanity anchors this excellent drama." Time critic Richard Schickel also ranked the film #8 on his own Top 10 list, saying that the film "is a spare, taciturn, devastating account of what happens to the souls of soldiers forced to fight wars for which not even phony or temporary justifications are offered them."

The film was criticized by some for having a heavy-handed approach. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post wrote, "Haggis also appears to have no respect for his audience. At its crudest, the film settles for agitprop." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said that "the characters in this somber film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world. And though this film in fact does have something crucial to convey, this is not the way to go about it." Conversely, Stephanie Zacharek of Salon was critical of the film for not going far enough, saying that it "chickens out."

Awards and nominations

Haggis won an award given by the SIGNIS at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, where the film was in contention for the Golden Lion. Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

External links

• Official site
• In the Valley of Elah at IMDb
• In the Valley of Elah at AllMovie
• In the Valley of Elah at Box Office Mojo
• In the Valley of Elah at Rotten Tomatoes
• In the Valley of Elah at Metacritic