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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0085391176275
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: February 19, 2008
Running Time: 121 minutes
Sales Rank: 854
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: September 28, 2007
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Editorial Review:
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
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
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Complicated Characters Brilliantly Portrayed
Usually when I'm told that anyone is "complicated," I shy away, having too often found the term a cover for someone who is a self-dramatizing bore. However this movie presents complicated people who are inherently interesting, and a complicated situation that is inherently moving and not just a layer-cake of contrived emotion.
This might be one of the few movies you'll see that does NOT assume a young enlisted person who fought in Iraq is automatically "a hero." In fact, much of the compelling drama of this film revolves around the viewer's discovery of just how unheroic young Mike Deerfield was.
The disillusionment is made all the more poignant in that we see it through the eyes of the young man's father when he goes to his son's state-side base to find out the circumstances of the young man's grisly death. The disappointment in who his son had grown up to be comes in subtle ways at first, as when Tommy Lee Jones goes to Mike's regular off-duty hangout and finds it's a sleazy strip-joint. One could dismiss that - boys will be boys. But the realization of the young man's character flaws starts to go deeper.
Two mysteries haunt this drama. The first is the obvious one about who killed the young man. But the second mystery, the one that is legitimately complicated, revolves around how this young man, born with so much promise, could have devolved into such a flawed and actually corrupt human being.
Was it his father's stern military influence skewing ... Read More
Rating: - A Richly Textured Jones Performance Dominates Haggis' Post-Iraq Detective Story
I have to admit it was with some trepidation that I finally saw this 2007 murder mystery directed and written by Paul Haggis. His last time doing double-duty was the polarizing Crash, an omnibus fable of LA-based race relations, powerfully acted but also a manipulative model of melodramatic contrivance. This time out, he is less patronizing because the storyline is more contained and based in fact. However, Haggis still shows the same need to stay topical, seek restitution for his characters and convey an undeniable sense of parable. These factors are what make movie-watchers either love his work or hate it for the way he often undercuts the credibility of the drama to make his points. Regardless, there is no arguing with the fact that Tommy Lee Jones gives a masterful performance of a man who can barely contain his grief under a veneer of old-school reserve. It's a gratifying continuation of the recently stellar work he has done in his own directorial debut, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and the Coen Brothers' bleak No Country for Old Men.
Jones plays taciturn Hank Greenfield, a retired Army officer and ex-military cop who now hauls gravel in Tennessee. He receives word that his son Mike, a soldier just back from Iraq, is about to be reported as AWOL from his base in New Mexico. Immediately sensing something is not right, Hank leaves his concerned wife Joan at home and drives straight to the base to see if he can get to the bottom of his son's disappearance. He receives next to ... Read More
Rating:  - Beautiful film. Manipulative and dishonest.
Valley is a beautifully shot movie, with great acting and an engaging thriller script. Plus it criticizes the Iraq War. Hence the great reviews.
But there is another side to Valley - disrespect for soldiers and dishonest manipulation of the facts. Soldiers in Valley are pretty much all depicted negatively: they spend times in strip joints and hookers, do drugs (meth, just in case viewers don't mind pot) and booze up constantly. And, oh, yes, they are also torturers, psychopaths and murderers.
At the core, Valley is a true story, but a wee bit "spiced up" to get the PC message across. Do soldiers booze up and go to strip clubs? I'd be surprised if many didn't. Do they all do that and are they all druggies? Hmmm, probably not, but that's not what Valley shows.
Another example is that you have 2 simultaneous murders on the same base. The main story's and the bathtub drowning incident. In real life, the bathtub drowning didn't happen in the same place and time. Now, 1 grisly murder is a big story, sure. 2 murders imply a trend. Valley is all about implications by twisting facts.
Does the VA always treat veterans well? Ummm, there was a scandal about that, no?
Is the Bush administration incompetent and did they royally mess up in Iraq? Yes and yes.
Are vets at risk of coming back traumatized? Yes, and they need help, not being spit on.
Do soldiers, under the pretense of caring for them, need to be generalized ... Read More
Rating:  - Pretty good, but...
I thought this movie was well written and acted, but I found the resolution of the murder to be a bit unsatisfying and incomplete.
Rating:  - An excellent, moving film
Unfortunately, a great deal of the reviews on here are obvious examples of partisan views. I'm not going to try to tell you that I don't swing one way or the other in the political spectrum, but this film will your views regardless of your party affiliation. If you're a supporter of the war, you will be forced to reconsider the reasoning for it. However, the documentary in the special features section will raise guilt in those who have not supported the war. Soldiers returned from Iraq speak about how they expected to return to a society that understood the trauma that they had undergone. When in reality, very little has changed.
The overall message of the film is extremely powerful. For those interested in the cinematography, it
was as strong as nearly any film I've seen.
While your political views may not be in line with those that come across on the surface of this film, I urge you to give it a shot. Renting is always a good way to see if you like it before considering purchasing it.
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