'In the Valley of Elah' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Kenneth's review of 'In the Valley of Elah' is up. He was disappointed by the film's third act, but has plenty of praise for Tommy Lee Jones' performance. He says this HD DVD has strong video and TrueHD audio, but not much in the way of supplements. Still, this one is worth a look.

Full review here:
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/1309/...leyofelah.html

[theHDphantom]

Not too sure if I'll be picking this one up. I find that Haggis REALLY likes to lay on the cliches very thick. Might just watch this one on the satellite first before I do any buying.
Nonetheless, great review Ken.

[docmanjay2]

mine is shipping from warners should get soon, glad the pq is great

[krylonman]

I couldn't have enjoyed this more, and I absolutely hated 'Crash.' This is everything that movie isn't—quiet, mature, unsensational, believable and involving. I couldn't think of a less likely movie to accuse of being a political screed, but I guess some people will do that for anything. As for the third act:

"For all of my emotional investment in the first two acts, I felt nothing in the end but the sting of hollow disappointment."

But that's exactly it! I was sort of delighted that the movie didn't decide to "punch things up" to give us some sort of jaw-dropping twist ending, or even something to leave us at least a little satisfied so we're not totally depressed on the way out (like the ending of, say, 'Michael Clayton'). It was just a very sad story, and once we learned everything behind it sadness was all there was. I loved it, and I'm really pretty grateful that they concluded things the way they did.

I do agree that the last moment really clangs, though. Now *that's* someting you'd expect from the writer/director of 'Crash.'

[Mike171979]

This movie smelled a little to anit-war to be enjoyable.

I mean the director's intent, to make an anti-Iraq war film, was a little too obvious, and it detracted from the film as a whole.

If it was just a father in search of his son, the movie would have had some legs, but it swiftly became obvious what it was.

I mean come on, his son was stabbed by a fellow soldier for absolutely no reason, and the only response the murderer had was that it could have just as easily been the victim stabbing him?????????!!!!!!!!!!???????????

Utterly ridiculous.

It doesn't matter if you are for the war in Iraq, or if you are against it, the ending of this movie is absurd.