Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6581 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-05-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 121 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Notch up another great role for Tommy Lee Jones here, as his starring performance in the lead of In The Valley Of Elah is a further acting performance of real merit. And this from the man who has already recently added the equally excellent No Country For Old Men to his CV.

In The Valley Of Elah, however, is a very different beast. It’s the new film from writer/director Paul Haggis, he who previously brought us Oscar-winner Crash, and Jones stars as Hank Deerfield, a man who decides to take matters into his own hands when he finds out that his son has disappeared. However, what complicates matters is that Deerfield’s son is a soldier on leave, and the military are proving to be little help in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Yet there’s far more to In The Valley Of Elah than that, even though its narrative is interesting and surprising. No, there are real layers of drama here, and none more obvious than those surrounding Jones’ character (the lead actor, incidentally, snagged a richly-deserved Oscar nomination for his work here). He’s an understated, yet brilliant, creation, and one quite wonderfully brought to life. In conjunction with Susan Sarandon as his wife, and Charlize Theron as the detective he enlists the help of, In The Valley Of Elah emerges as one of the most unfairly overlooked films of recent times, and one that’s ripe for discovery on DVD. A superb piece of work. --Jon Foster

DVD Description
Synopsis

"Your son is missing." It’s the phone call every soldier’s father dreads. What Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) had never thought to fear was that this call would come when his son was home in the U.S., on leave from service in Baghdad. Facing military indifference to the disappearance, Hank decides to take matters into his own hands and discover the truth about what’s happened to his son. With the reluctant help of police detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), Hank embarks on a journey that will bring him up against the closed ranks of the armed forces and the harsh realities of modern warfare.

Written and directed by Academy Award ®- winner Paul Haggis and starring three Academy Award ®-winning actors – Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon – alongside James Franco, Josh Brolin and Jason Patric, In the Valley of Elah is the powerful story of one father’s search for the truth.

Customer Reviews

Mature American film
This film tackles head on blind patriotism, shattered dreams and the brutalizing of young men by fighting in a war, that in the opinion of many, should never have taken place.

Clearly the director is one of those who question the Iraq debacle and it's consequence back home in the USA. No doubt he will be derided by many right-wing Americans for having the audacity to create a film that questions the morality of America's involvement in that war.

The plot is well described by others. Tommy Lee Jones gives the performance of a lifetime and Charlize Theron shows that she is one of America's finest actresses. The film is a tad ponderous, but that is often what you get when trying to portray genuine heartache.

This is not a heart warming movie experience (don't watch it if you have toothache), but nevertheless it is a compelling story.

Tense and gripping, with a real sense of doom
This is not a war film. It is a murder mystery thriller, part police procedural, part dogged individual working it out for himself. Nevertheless, events in Iraq loom darkly in the background, glimpsed on grainy, corrupted little clips on a mobile phone.

This is a towering performance by Tommy Lee Jones as a gnarled but idealistic ex-soldier, full of tiny glimpses of emotion under a surface of deternined stoicism. Susan Sarandon is equally compelling as his wife. In fact all the performances in this film are thoroughly believable, making it all the more chilling.

To give too much of the plot away would be wrong, but Jones' character gets a call to say that his son, recently returned to America after a tour of Iraq, has gone missing. Believing this to be out of character, he drives across the States to his base in order to investigate. What he finds isn't pleasant.

Gripping right up until the final pan up a flagpole (you're dying to see what's flying there...for reasons which will become clear), this is a detective story with a difference and one of the best films in recent years.

Whodunit and whytheydunit
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.