bzb2001

"In the Valley of Elah" refers to the location where David killed Goliath. It is told as a bedtime story by Tommy Lee Jones to a little boy. The child asks why they didn't shoot Goliath. Jones responds that they did have arrows but there are rules of warfare, they could not just shoot someone in that situation. Instead a boy named David, without armor, took down the giant warrior with a single slingshot. The child responds, "so they shot him." It is this point of view Paul Haggis' film takes on with a muted velocity. A father awakes one morning to a phone call saying his son is back from Iraq but is reported AWOL from his army base. Without hesitation the father makes a two day trip to the base in one day and begins his own investigation into his son's disappearance. Being an ex army policeman himself he decides it would be best to handle the situation through the local police. There he meets a freshman detective (Charlize Theron) who hesitantly begins to help him with his search.

The father is played by Tommy Lee Jones as an understated authoritarian perhaps a little too tired to let everyone know how he really feels. He is our anchor throughout the film even when we begin to learn more about the Theron character and the parallel investigation happening at the army base headed by Jason Patric. It is maybe Jones' best performance because we expect him to act a different way but he forces us to accept his character for who he is.

We begin to learn more about his son. We learn some of the awful things he saw and did in war; and some of the awful things he and his comrades do back home. The gift of the film is another look at our conflict in Iraq. So much of what we see and hear is filtered politically. "Elah" has a way of humanizing the war and its effects on the young soldiers who serve there. There are no cheap shots at the Bush administration nor are there tired pacifist cries to an end to all wars. Instead we are questioned about human life and its worth to family if not to its country. There is an undercurrent theme of torture throughout the film that doesn't make it easy to watch, but it is not on the nose and disproportionate as in a film like "Rendition." "In the Valley of Elah" is not an easy film to watch, and perhaps it shouldn't be. Although it works as a mystery, the movie is much more a character drama that is altogether fascinating and sorrowful. Paul Haggis has followed his Oscar winner "Crash" with another film similar in tone. Both are concerned with violence and humanity, but "Elah" I feel is even better as it does not use any of its characters as "Crash" seemed to. The emotion and heart to "Elah" is not on the sleeve but under a gruff exterior.

Not everyone will like this film because of its themes. Millions of potential ticket buyers were probably scared off by the mere mention of Iraq. The media is saturated with the events over there and the theater is not where the public wants to continue that shelling. If anything the filmmakers respect the audience - a notion that is more and more novel. It does not spoon feed the plot nor does it pound you over the head with their personal beliefs. It is likely that Haggis is not a proponent of our being in Iraq, but he knows not to force open our eyes with toothpicks and overstimulate us with tragic scenes and overwrought emotion.

I continue to think about the correlation between Goliath's demise in that valley and the events of this film. I am not convinced I know who our David is. And do we have a Goliath to bring down? Later in the movie Theron tells Jones that the story is not true. "Of course it is. It was even in the Koran" is his reply. I wonder if by the end he feels differently. That story is a metaphor but inconveniently those situations do not play out so black and white. More often than not Goliath is within, and it is David we cannot find. **** out of ****

People grieve in different ways. In the case of 'Moonlight Mile,' the way people don't grieve may even come into question. There is a crassness involved when people assume they would act different. How do you know unless you're in that exact situation? Brad Silberling writes and directs 'Moonlight Mile,' a film as touching and heartfelt as it is off the cuff and quirky. As in Silberling's other efforts, 'City of Angels' and 'Casper', he has created a film that perhaps overloads on the whim and fanciful but lands as an entirely engrossing experience.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the fiancée of a woman who is murdered in a small town eatery. We meet him as well as the woman's parents, played by Susan Sarandon and Dustin Hoffman, at the funeral and we are surprised by the lack of emotion of any kind. But what does not surprise us is the undertones of pain. Sarandon's mother hides under a blanket of sarcasm and calloused annoyance of the clichéd behavior shown by family friends and well-wishers. Hoffman's father copes by staying busy. Busy with the funeral, busy with the business, busy with the sick dog, and ultimately busy with the murder trial.

If there is a section of the film that can be pointed to as being not on par with the rest of the film it would be the preparation for the trial. Though it makes sense this would be included in this type of story, the tone does not ring true with the rest of the film. There is a strong performance by Holly Hunter as the prosecuting attorney, as she attempts to put the murderer behind bars, or worse.

It should be said the film is based in part on the murder of Silberling's own fiancée, actress Rebecca Schaeffer. I feel that real life instance helped with the tone which is somber, yet whimsical. In fact there is a scene that involves a dog puking on the shoes of a hand-wringing relative at the funeral. So how depressing can it possibly be? The very best section of the film encompasses newcomer Ellen Pompeo who plays Bertie. She works at the post office and is enlisted by Gyllenhaal to retrieve the wedding invitations which were never halted. She also tends the local bar where she patiently awaits her boyfriend, who is MIA in Vietnam. She carries her scenes with a veracity that keeps her quirky lovability intertwined with a grievous glow of sadness just aching to get out. She is, of course, Gyllenhaal's moral dilemma. How can he care for his fiancée's family if he is suddenly in love with another girl? There is a subset of people who didn't like this film simply because it allowed it's characters to be human. Not all people grieve like your supposed to on TV. Maybe there isn't a lot of wallowing and screaming. Maybe the emotions are kept within and bubble to the top only momentarily. It is almost always more interesting what emotions an actor can hide rather than an over the top burst.

It is also true there is no easy way to swallow 'Moonlight Mile.' There isn't a way in to it's core that is accessible without accepting these people for who they are. It can be hard to accept the whimsy or the humor when we are supposed to be sad that a person has died. It is hard to shift gears into a courtroom drama when we are also put in a position of watching a budding romance. But isn't that true of all of us? Can any of us be compartmentalized as sad or angry or distraught without having to also apply other labels of varying truth? In 'Moonlight Mile' we are not asked to rely on our own senses to complete the story, we need to rely on accepting someone else's. ***.5 out of ****

Among the pathways of depravity there lays a mile marker for The Boondock Saints. A film so inertly void of humanity and purpose it rarely saw a theater screen. Although perhaps it should have, the growing number of fans has made this film an alarmingly enormous cult sensation.

The plot is a simple vigilante story of two brothers who murder those they see as reprehensible. The fact that they are reprehensible as well is never understood. Masked behind the idea that they are good Irish Catholics, the duo set forth in a violent fury ridding the world of those they deem evil. The detective assigned to apprehend the two is played by Wilem Dafoe in a performance so over the top we forget how good of an actor he really is. And yes, the cop is just as screwed up as the crooks - this is one of those stories. Though he is sent to arrest the wanted men, Dafoe's character is much more interested in making dramatic gestures and compiling evidence while listening to classical music, in a scene of eye-rolling silliness.

Along the way the criminal pair pick up a psychotic counterpart who yells a lot and seems so much like the loose cannon they do not need. We learn very little about why the two have set forth on this rampage or where this idiotic third wheel came from, or maybe we do. By this time I had lost any need to pay attention.

Following in the ancestry of Tarantino films, The Boondock Saints has the appearance of imitating (badly) a genre on the edge of what is permissible. Because Tarantino's characters utter "nigger" does not give clearance for the word to be used in any random situation. This film as a result comes off as racist, xenophobic, homophobic and certainly doesn't put religion in the best light. If there is anything positive about the film, it does excite the thirteen-year-old thrill to see novel executions involving commodes and kitty cats. But like that feeling the film is at best immaturely titillating and at worst dangerous. .5* out of ****