In honor of Stop-Loss coming to theaters this weekend, I'd like to bring another movie about the Iraq War to everyone's attention. In the Valley of Elah may have been a commercial failure when it was released last year, but I think that it was one of the best movies of the year and it did earn Tommy Lee Jones an Oscar nomination for his turn as Hank Deerfield, a man searching for the truth about what happened to his son, who disappeared after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.Jones' performance is particularly heart-wrenching; he plays Deerfield, a former military policeman, as outwardly reserved but with obvious pain and guilt creeping through beneath the surface. Deerfield starts off as a patriotic veteran who has sent both of his sons off to war, but, as a result of his investigation, learns things about the war's effects on soldiers that make him question what he once believed in.
The latest movie from writer/director Paul Haggis, who worked on both Crash and Million Dollar Baby, In the Valley of Elah tries to give the audience a glimpse of how difficult it is for soldiers to reacculturate themselves back into society after being in Iraq, as well as how their experiences in war continue to haunt them long after they leave the battlegrounds. Also, interestingly, many of the actors who play soldiers in the movie actually were a part of the armed services in real life.
In order to watch the trailer for this movie, click here. If anyone sees or has seen this movie, leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
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