In The Valley Of Elah

Will Smith first, now Tommy Lee. But not an alien in sight….

 

Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) is your average fifty-something veteran from Anywhere, USA. Laconic, untrusting, unemotional, patriotic, Hank drives an F-150 pickup, drinks bourbon and is everything we expect him to be. The film begins with a phone call phone call notifying him that his son, recently returned from Iraq, is AWOL. Without so much as a peck on the cheek to his wife (Susan Sarandon), Hank is in the truck, looking to find his boy. It’s not long after he arrives at the army base that things start to turn sour, as reports of a dead body start Hank on an investigative journey that will turn him against everything he thought he knew.

 

Is this a war film? Yes and no. Although regular flashback clips – presented here as tasteless videos taken by Hanks son, Mike – remind us of the context, the only conflict depicted in Paul Haggis’ movie is between Americans. This is global conflict under the microscope, no generals on battlefields or ‘big picture’ politicians. This is not about winning or losing, but the toll of taking part. The impact of war on ordinary people, ordinary people forced into terrible situations. We follow Hank and local police detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) in the stillest, coldest, most dead-pan detective story as they try to unravel the web of circumstances that led Mike Deerfield to return safe and sound from the most dangerous place on earth, only to end up as a charred, dismembered corpse a couple of days later.

 

Tick by tock (this film was never intended to raise any heartbeats by pace alone), Hank and Emily join the dots from strip club to gun store, barracks to chicken shack, slowly wearing down the apathy and lies of those around them. With the help of Hank’s uncannily sharp eye for forensic detail and gallons of persistence, they get there in the end. But the truth comes at a high price for Hank. Steeling himself against the grisly details of his son’s murder, this man-o-war finds himself in unfamiliar waters. Chipping away at the façade of capability presented by the army, we discover that Mike Deerfield and his peers were hardly the American heroes of 90’s Hollywood. More Buffalo Soldiers than Saving Private Ryan, drugs, torture and civilian casualties all come to the surface. Faced with the realisation that the institution he has taken pride in for many years, and by implication the country he fought for, is an amoral rotting mess, Hank’s flinty exterior begins to soften and to the grief of a father is added the implacable sense of melancholy regret.

 

This emptiness pervades the final third of the film, as all the dirty secrets come out of the woodwork. What we are looking at is the closest Hollywood has come to a lo-fi, realistic depiction of the total desensitisation of young men sent to war, some of them already criminals, some of them disaffected, all of them in over their heads. These are no conquering heroes, no champions of democracy; less demob-happy, more like demob-tragic.

 

‘Inspired by real events’ – whatever that means, this film touches on several news stories from the past few years, but its real impact isn’t as an anti-war statement. Superbly bleak performances from Tommy Lee and Charlize Theron help to make this more than the sum of its parts, a slow-burning film that plays on the mind more than it ought to. The Valley of Elah is the setting of the bible story of David and Goliath, which Hank tells mid-film. The question you’re left asking is: who or what are the monsters being fought here?

 

Zombie Nation

Sometimes a big-name star will so dominate a film that the surrounding cast appear utterly inanimate; however for eighty percent of I Am Legend Will Smith’s on-screen rivals literally comprise a handful of shop dummies. Francis Lawrence’s “last man alive” zombie nightmare pits New York’s sole survivor, military scientist Robert Neville, against legions of “dark-seeking” mutants. Three years have elapsed since a globally-administered cure for cancer mutated, killing 90% of humankind and turning almost everyone else into the obligatory demonic foes. Conveniently immune, top virologist Neville elected to remain in the evacuated city, searching for the cure to this doomsday disease.

For a film with such a grand premise, and despite the impressive computer-generated expanses of New York City reclaimed by nature (think cornfields in central park, Times Square crumbling among the weeds), the focus is exclusively personal. This film is all Smith, all the time, and the pressure of carrying such a blockbuster single-handed is remarkably intense. Few A-list stars would feel comfortable operating with naught but a German shepherd for a co-star; but for a sparse smattering of flashbacks and the final twenty minutes, he is devoid of human contact. 

So it’s really saying something that by far the best scenes are those where we are gradually introduced to the daily routines and deep fears of humanity’s last hope. We watch as he hunts deer through the streets, scours deserted houses for supplies and broadcasts radio messages in the hope of contact with other survivors, all the while keeping a close eye on the time, for as sunset approaches the monsters come out to play. The transition from light to dark exerts a powerful change on our hero; gone is the reggae-whistling optimist hitting golf balls off an aircraft carrier and here is the last of humankind trembling with fear and running for his life. 

This couldn’t be further from gung-ho heroism if it tried. More than once are we led to question the psychological effects of Neville’s isolation and obsessively methodical routine. And while he may be packing an assortment of weaponry (not to mention a frankly obscene array of muscles – they couldn’t resist a token topless exercise shot), Neville’s fragility, and by extension, that of all hope for the future, is never in doubt. The film keeps the idea of a happy resolution hanging in the balance, and is at its powerful best when focussing on Neville’s sense of guilt and obligation that drives him to keep searching for a miracle cure in the face of overwhelming adversity.

So it’s a real shame when the last section of the film takes a turn for the predictable. Without wishing to spoil too much, Neville is met by two other survivors, Anna and her son Ethan, and all hell breaks loose when the zombies come after them. After spending a good hour or more slowly introducing us to the evil menace, from hearing their shrieks at night, and catching glimpses in Neville’s torchlight to small encounters, the blockbuster impulse breaks free and hundreds upon hundreds of less than convincing zombies are flooding the screen. Cue multiple explosions and visceral fight scenes (just how does becoming subject to a mutant virus, living in darkness and subsisting entirely on a cannibalistic diet ALWAYS manage to endow cinema zombies with superhuman strength?) but, credit where credit is due, not once does Smith resort to type – no “attitude” here, no tough-guy ‘Oh HEELL no!’ ass-kicking action hero antics whatsoever. 

Sadly the final scenes exchanged emotional impact for sentimentality, and seemed hastily cobbled onto the end of what was, for the most part, an engrossing look at apocalypse from an unexpectedly personal perspective.  Fortunately, the film still does enough to make it well worth the viewing. 

 

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