You fight a lot of monsters?

In the Valley of Elah

(2007)

After Crash, which had its moments but frequently just came across as trite speechifying, I didn't expect Paul Haggis to follow it up with something as measured and thoughtful as this.

Taking the Iraq War theme and wrapping it in a murder mystery may sound like a recipe for shallowness, but he skillfully uses it as a jumping off point, so exploring themes of loss and the dehumanisation of warfare.

Tommy Lee Jones is magnificent and Charlize Theron matches him in a less showy role. Susan Sarandon gets short shrift; you get the impression she did this as a gesture of support for the content more than anything else. I'd kind of written off Haggis as a hack following Crash, and his WWII Eastwood flicks seemed a little too earnest, but he's come up with the goods here.

****1/2

Comments

Nanobots aren’t just for Christmas.

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Prometheus (2012) Post- Gladiator , Ridley Scott opted for an “All work and no pondering” approach to film making. The result has been the completion of as many movies since the turn of the Millennium as he directed in the previous twenty years. Now well into his seventies, he has experienced the most sustained period of success of his career. For me, it’s also been easily the least-interesting period. All of them entirely competently made, but all displaying the machine-tooled approach that was previously more associated with his brother.

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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