In The Valley Of Elah (DVD)

I am not a big cinema goer but I do watch a lot of DVD`s. occasionally a movie catches my eye and tempts me to the cinema to watch it on the big screen; this was one of those movies. I often find that a trailer for a movie contains all the good or best parts and then the movie itself pails into insignificance but in this case the movie was an absolute piece of sheer genius in my opinion. In the valley of Elah is a story of ex military police sergeant Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) whose life is thrown into turmoil when his sons regiment phones to tell him his son is AWOL from the army. Hank assures the person on the other end of the phone that his son is not ...  Read the complete review

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE MOVIE ONLY AS IT IS NOT AVAILABLE ON DVD YET!! Imagine your usual war related movie, gunfire, bloodshed, a hero........ Imagined all that? Well that's what I was imagining when my other half suggested this movie but I could not have been more wrong. We had planned to go and see MR Depps Sweeney todd but I somehow got talked into changing my mind (hard to do when Johnny Depp is involved I can tell you) but I have to admit I am glad I went to see this film because it was truly brilliant. The plot is a fairly simple one but acted out to perfection, Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) gets a call to say his son has gone AWOL from ...  Read the complete review

The war in Iraq is becoming a hot topic for politically involved directors. It is probably only a matter of time before it follows the Vietnam war in spawning such masterpieces as Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Oliver Stone's Platoon. The movie industry has been coming up with a new picture exposing the toll the Iraq war is taking on America and Americans every couple of months. The latest one, In the Valley of Elah, is particularly poignant, being based on real events. Writer and director Paul Haggis (Crash) based the screenplay on the true story of Richard Davis, an Iraqi war veteran who went missing soon after returning to the United States in ...  Read the complete review

When retired army officer Hank Deerfield is notified that his son Mike has gone AWOL, he is immediately concerned. Having recently returned from active service in Iraq, Mike's behaviour is unusual, prompting Hank to travel to his base town and enter into some enquiries of his own. Unable to prompt any interest from the local police force, Hank tries desperately to track his son's last known movements, but has little luck. When his worst fears are realised, Hank funds an unexpected ally in Detective Emily Sanders, who becomes personally involved in the journey to find out what happened to Mike Deerfield. But not everybody is quite as keen for the truth to come ...  Read the complete review

note: also appears in part on The Student Room and Flixster By now we've all really had enough of films about the Iraq war, and whilst recieving something of a mixed reception upon release, I maintain that In The Valley of Elah is one of the better films about the conflict in recent times. It looks more at the turmoil and strain that it places on the soldiers rather than the grittiness of the war itself, and thus is more a psychological portrait. The film depicts a war veteran, Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones), and his wife Joan (Susan Sarandon), as they search for their son, Mike (Jonathan Tucker), who has recently returned home from Iraq, but ...  Read the complete review