In the Valley of Elah

Infobox Film
name = In the Valley of Elah


caption = Theatrical release poster
director = Paul Haggis
producer = Paul Haggis
Bob Hayward
writer = Paul Haggis
Mark Boal (story by)
starring = Tommy Lee Jones
Charlize Theron
Susan Sarandon
Jason Patric
James Franco
music = Mark Isham
cinematography = Roger Deakins
editing = Jo Francis
distributor = Warner Independent
released = September 14, 2007 (limited)
September 28, 2007
runtime = 121 min.
country = United States
language = English
budget = $23 million
gross = Domestic
$6,766,924
Worldwide
$16,069,501
website = http://wip.warnerbros.com/inthevalleyofelah/
amg_id = 1:375398
imdb_id = 0478134

"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 (Jonathan Tucker) 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. Explaining to the school custodian, possibly an illegal alien from Guatemala, that the American standard hanging upside down is a sign of great distress, according to the United States Flag Code, he helps the caretaker fix the flag before continuing on his way.

Upon reaching the base, Hank meets with army personnel; all of them express their condolences, but are largely unhelpful. Although he talks to a few people who knew Mike, he is unable to find any useful information. Faced with this apparent stonewalling, Hank steals Mike's phone from his room and has it analyzed by a local computer expert; the phone's memory has been damaged by heat, but the expert offers to try and recover the video clips from the phone, a process that will take some days. Hank pays the man $100 and awaits his reply by e-mail.

With most of his early investigations fruitless, Hank 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. The woman is worried about how disturbed he may be, but Sanders tells her that there is nothing she can legally 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 whom he has not seen in over fifteen years. Asked about his oldest son, Hank informs him that he died serving in the 82nd Airborne in a helicopter crash while on maneuvers two years ago. When asked about Mike, Hank evades talking about Mike directly. Hank returns to his motel room to find the first imperfect videos dredged 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 that 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 that 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.

Faced with 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 mentions a green car that 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 (Susan Sarandon) over the phone of Mike's death. Joan 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 hadn't joined the army.

After putting her young son to bed, Det. Sanders looks over grisly crime scene photos while Hank examines video from Mike's phone; the videos are very fragmented. At work, Det. Sanders is given bad assignments mocking her expertise, and the men in the force clearly believe that she slept her way into her job. Whether or not she slept with him, she does have some pull with the chief (Josh Brolin) who allows her to pursue the case, even though the additional unsolved murder cases reflect badly on him.

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. With the support of some narcotics officers, Sanders leads the police to Ortiez's residence to apprehend him, but Ortiez flees on foot with the cops in ineffectual pursuit. Having followed the police against Sander's objections, a frustrated Hank chases Ortiez down in the street, hits him with the open door of his truck and brutally assaults him. When Det. Sanders tries to pull the frenzied Hank off Ortiez, Hank accidentally hits her as well. No charges are filed, but Sanders is furious with Hank's intervention and loss of control.

In interviewing the soldiers with whom Mike was out on the night when he died, Hank and Sanders find inconsistencies in their testimonies. The men had gone out to a fast food restaurant that night, but had ordered only enough for three, despite their claims that the group had numbered four people. Discrepancies in the signatures on Mike's credit slips provide further evidence that the men are not telling the truth. After one of the men commits suicide, it is interpreted by the military as the closest that they will get to a confession. Hank and Emily are not satisfied.

In the meantime Hank gets the last video from the mobile over email which shows Mike torturing a prisoner in the backof a Humvee military vehicle. The full story of the night eventually emerges when Penning confesses in front of Hank and Emily. Mike and the men had gotten kicked out of a strip club after Mike became agitated and caused a disturbance. Afterwards, fighting between the men escalated, and as a possible by-product of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, 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. Penning also reveals that Mike used to torture prisoners and that's how he got the nickname "Doc."

Hank Deerfield apologizes to Ortiez for the beating when he finds that Ortiez was not responsible. After the two speak, Hank finds that Mike had struck and killed a child with his Humvee in Iraq due to a standing order to keep driving even if something or someone is in their way. This caused psychological problems for Mike, who had made an agitated phone call to his father after the event. Hank had thought that his son was only experiencing typical emotions associated with a tour of duty, and had turned his disturbed son away with no comfort.

With the crime finally solved and the men from Mike's squadron revealed as his killers, Hank returns home to find a flag his son had mailed from overseas, along with a picture of it flying over his squad in Iraq. His faith shattered, Hank takes the flag to the school and hoists 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

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." [cite news
url= http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2007-09-11-tommy-lee-jones_N.htm
title= Tommy Lee Jones ready for any 'Elah' fallout
work= USA Today
first= Anthony
last= Breznican
date= 2007-09-11
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

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. [cite news
url= http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/daily-features/article3318847.ece
title= Collateral da

work= The Belfast Telegraph
date= 2008-01-08
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

A 2004 report by Mark Boal in "Playboy" on Richard Davis's murder, entitled "Death and Dishonor", inspired Haggis. [cite news
work= Playboy
url= http://www.playboy.com/magazine/features/death-and-dishonor/death-and-dishonor-p1.html
title= Death and Dishonor
first= Mark
last= Boal
date= May 2004
accessdate= 2008-03-09] [cite news
url= http://www.winnipegsun.com/Entertainment/Movies/2007/09/15/4498082-sun.html
work= Winnipeg Sun
title= Haggis hits home with Elah
first= Jum
last= Slotek
date= 2007-09-15
accessdate= 2008-03-09] Davis's story was also told in an episode of the CBS News program "48 Hours Mystery". [cite news
url= http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/17/48hours/printable1625064.shtml
title= Duty, Death, Dishonor
first= Erin
last= Moriarty
date= 2006-12-23
work= 48 Hours
publisher= CBS News
date= 2007-09-15
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

The [http://www.richarddavisforpeace.com/ 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.

creenplay 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. [cite news
url= http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20051361_20051365_20051902,00.html
title= In the Valley of Elah
work= Entertainment Weekly
date= 2007-08-24
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

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. [ [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_valley_of_elah/numbers.php In the Valley of Elah - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes ] ] It opened in the United Kingdom on January 18, 2008.imdb title|0478134]

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. [cite web
url= http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/in_the_valley_of_elah/
title= In the Valley of Elah
accessdate= 2007-09-16
publisher= Rotten Tomatoes] On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 64 out of 100, based on 25 reviews. [cite web
url= http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/inthevalleyofelah
title= In the Valley of Elah (2007)
accessdate= 2007-09-14
publisher= Metacritic]

"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."cite news
url= http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686244_1692016,00.html
title= Top 10 Movies
first= Richard
last= Corliss
work= Time
accessdate= 2008-03-09] "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."cite news
url= http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686244_1692273,00.html
title= Top 10 Movies
first= Richard
last= Schickel
work= Time
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

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." cite news
url= http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302273.html
title= 'Valley of Elah' Spins An All-Too-Timeless Tale
first= Stpehen
last= Hunter
work= The Washington Post
date= 2007-09-14
accessdate= 2008-03-09] 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."cite news
url= http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/cl-et-elah14sep14,1,3292030.story
title= 'In the Valley of Elah'
first= Kenneth
last= Turan
work= Los Angeles Times
date= 2007-09-14
accessdate= 2008-03-09] Conversely, Stephanie Zacharek of "Salon" was critical of the film for not going far enough, saying that it "chickens out." [cite news
last= Zacharek
first= Stephanie
title= 'In the Valley of Elah'
work= Salon
date= 2007-09-14
url= http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/09/14/elah/
accessdate= 2008-03-09]

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.

References

External links

* [http://wip.warnerbros.com/inthevalleyofelah/ Official site]
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