Dir. Paul Haggis, US, 2007, 121 mins
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon
Review by Carol Allen
This is ostensibly a murder mystery, which at the same time is attempting to say something of substance about what war does to young men. Hank (Jones) is a retired military veteran, who has imposed his sense of duty to his country onto his son Mike (Jonathan Tucker). When Mike disappears from military camp on his first weekend back after serving in Iraq, Hank goes in search of him. The police in the person of Detective Emily Sanders (Theron) at first refuse to help him, as this is a military matter and outside police jurisdiction. However Emily is persuaded, when Mike's dismembered and charred body is found in the desert and as together the two of them battle with the military authorities to discover how this could have happened, they uncover a situation, which shakes to the core Hank's long held beliefs and love of his country.
It's a potentially interesting story with good performances from Jones, as the gruff, tough, controlled and unhistrionic Hank and Theron as Emily, a woman unflashily good at her job, who uses an ironic turn of phrase to deal with her sexist colleagues' hatred of her gender, while Sarandon makes the most of her limited screen time as Hank's wife Joan. One thing that does come over is that the boys, who are fighting this war, are mainly from solid, working class backgrounds, which is brought out visually in the depressing and functional environments, where Hank eats, the motel where he stays in the course of his quest and the bars, fast food joints and clubs that the soldiers frequent.
It's not, however, either as complex or eye opening as Haggis's previous film Crash, which explored the complexities of racism both open and covert in new and interesting ways. Apart from the use of the murder mystery framework, this doesn't say anything about the destructive effects of war that hasn't already been said. The unravelling of the mystery relies heavily on a pixellated video of events that have happened in the course of the combat, which is difficult to discern and therefore lacks impact and Mike's fellow soldiers are under characterised, which reduces the dramatic power of the film's resolution. The attempt to make an analogy between the story of David and Goliath in the Valley of Elah and Mike's attempt to stand up for what his father has taught him, isn't really valid, although it does emphasise Hank's belief that it is the duty of all good ordinary American to fight against what is wrong. Despite the best efforts of its actors, however, while the film has its heart in the right place, it is not as emotionally involving as ideally it should be, while its patriotism is of course less likely to appeal to a non American audience. At the opening we see Hank raising the American flag outside his house and explaining that if the flag is hung upside down, it means "Help we're in big trouble". At the end he does indeed hang the flag upside down. A good point but by then many of the audience may have forgotten the meaning of the message.
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