Product Description

Mike Deerfield returns to the U.S. after his tour of duty in Iraq and abruptly goes missing. His father Hank a spit-and-polish ex-MP from the Vietnam era goes looking for him. What he finds goes to the heart of American combat experiences in the Iraqi conflict. Academy Award?-winning* Crash filmmaker Paul Haggis teams with Oscar?- winning* actors Tommy Lee Jones Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon in a probing powerful fact-based look at fathers and sons?and at a nation and the young soldiers it sends into battle. Jones plays Hank whose quest lays bare a tangled web of cover-up murder mystery and profound revelation about the personal costs of war.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA/MILITARY & WAR UPC: 085391176275 Manufacturer No: 117627

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #847 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-02-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 121 minutes

Amazon.com
In career Army officer Hank Deerfield's worldview, the American military exists to bring order to the world, and honor and dignity to every one of its soldiers. As played by Tommy Lee Jones, in a layered performance that will haunt the viewer long after the film is over, Deerfield wears the Army life like he does his standard-issue white T-shirts--unconsciously making a cheap motel bed with crisp inspection-ready corners. Yet if war is hell, the purgatory for the relatives of damaged soldiers can cause far more anguish, and Paul Haggis' quietly devastating In the Valley of Elah tells this story through Deerfield, who is desperately trying to piece together the fate of his adored son Mike, a soldier in Iraq.

Mike's company has returned from duty, but he is missing; Hank flies from Tennessee to Fort Rudd in the Southwest, to conduct his own investigation into the disappearance. There he meets a smart but put-upon police officer (Charlize Theron, glammed-down but still showing a bit too much sexy collarbone for a cop) who also smells something off in the Army's official story of the disappearance. The two form an unlikely team, but as a friend tells Deerfield early on, "You gotta trust somebody sometime, Hank," and Mike's vanishing is Hank's tipping point.

As Hank pieces together the horrifying story of Mike's fate, the incremental pain becomes etched in Jones' ragged features, and the camera captures all of it--far more powerfully than could a million words of reportage from the front lines. Theron's performance is also strong, and Susan Sarandon is moving if underutilized as Hank's grief-stricken wife, robbed of the simple nuclear family life she so wanted. "They shouldn't send heroes to places like Iraq," says one of Mike's buddies late in the film, and it's the viewers' collective sorrow--and the film's great achievement--to feel that at the deepest human level. --A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

One of Tommy Lee Jones' strongest roles
After his career in the military, Hank Deerfield (Jones) settles down for a quiet life with his wife, Joan. He's not particularly worried at first when he learns his son is AWOL after coming back from Iraq--these things happen.

When the local police call to tell him his son's dead, Hank can't believe it and he enlists Emily Sanders (Theron) a local cop to help him solve his case. He gets his clues from his son's cell phone files, credit card receipts and testimony from fellow troop members.

The story's a harsh reminder that the war does not end when "Johnny comes marching home" and many of our troops and their families need help they're not getting from either the military or local officials. While Jones initially is only seeking to find his son, he uncovers a lot more about the realities of war than many of us would want to see. In my opinion, this is Jones' best performance yet.

Rebecca Kyle, April 2008

Tommy Lee is real.
Tommy Lee gives another oustanding performance. I can't decide which performance I would rate higher, but another solid movie to add to his list.

Iraq Soldier bashing movie
This movie was a stereo-typical Hollywood expose
of the problems with those who come back from Iraq.
It is anti-war and more typical of Hollywood than of
reality. The plot was symplistic and so PC you can
guess exactly how each plot sequence is going to work
(boring). It ends up with a Jane Fonda / John Kerry
view of our troops as torturers and murderers. Having
a son in the military I see this as simple American bashing
troop hate speech so typically the Hollywood elites who
seem to be more into America bashing propaganda than
finding out what is really going on in Iraq. One story
is taken and blown up as if it is the norm. Why is it
I never see any stories telling the wonderful things are
troops our doing in Iraq come out of Hollywood. Monolithic,
1984 same-think with never a dissenting voice. Really sad
that our troops daily put their lives on the line while
Hollywood rips up and smears our young men and women.
It ends with an upside down flag flying. The folks in
Hollywood seem stuck in their old Vietnam anti-troop mode.
What a shame. Don't waste your time on this movie. Just
another Jane Fonda American bashing Hollywood perversion
of reality hardly "cutting edge." Stereo-typical and boring.