In the Valley of Elah | DVD Review

It’s contradictory to say this, but even for a film that leaves a sticky trail of cheese in its wake, In The Valley of Elah may still shine the light of truth a little too uncomfortably bright for most Americans to look at with eyes wide open.

The oxymoron works this way: director Paul Haggis’s movie is wholly critical of how countries deal with mentally-fragile, young returning soldiers—namely the country of the U.S. of A. and the soldiers of the war in Iraq—but in order to keep some semblance of redemption etc. the film is shot and staged in the style of belief-affirming patriotic-war or triumph-against-the-odd films. The result is that he fails in doing both: the wholly important message of critique and re-examination is somewhat compromised or belittled, and what could have created emotional investment and hope becomes plain corny. Pulling in the eponymous reference to the Biblical David and Goliath? This is one example of trying too hard to be meaningful through metaphor and glossing over in the process the quietly meaningful in the real story of murdered Mike Deerfield, former Iraq soldier.

This is nothing we haven’t seen before from Haggis. In The Valley of Elah transposes the same blend of cultural criticism and hopeful patriotism of Crash, but more clumsily and less convincingly—and now it doesn’t even have the benefits of originality. Haggis: you’re no Capra, and there’s no reason you need be.

The film underperformed, with polarizing but generally favorable reviews and an Oscar nomination for Tommy Lee Jones as Hank Deerfield, the furrow-browed, quiet father in search of his son (the Academy’s salute to Crash?), and yet little box-office revenue, literally in the 3,000’s ranks of the year’s films domestically. This is a pity since the film’s message is truly important, as awkward as Haggis’s hit-you-over-the-head-style of delivery was. It seems that Iraq-war themed films are not of interest for current audiences.


The DVD features a making-of documentary and one deleted scene, a decided lack of any bells or whistles.

Although some of the comments captured in the making-of interviews helped illuminate the film’s message.

Actor Josh Brolin’s earnest observation that “Now we’re getting to the point where we’ve been in the war so many years, that that’s what it is, it’s almost like a separate entity, you say, ‘oh, the war, the war’—it’s unemotional. And that’s why I love what [Haggis] is doing, because he’s bringing back how personal it is” is one such case.

Scenes of Charlize Theron in her normal glamorous state also reminds one just how much she seems to equate masculinizing, plain-Jane roles, like her role of slick-haired Detective Emily Sanders, with instantly great drama.

An important and mostly intelligently-acted and realized film to watch in that it deals with all-too important topics, but there is too much heavy-handed Didacticism. Style over content in it at best a ‘bad’ case scenario.

Movie rating – 3

Disc Rating – 2