This suspense drama tackles the Iraq war from an oblique angle. Tommy Lee Jones plays an ex-military policeman investigates when his son disappears after returning from battle, leaving only some hastily shot camera-phone clips as clues. Written and directed by the ubiquitous Paul Haggis, manages to work several angles without becoming as obvious an “issues film” as his Oscar-wining Crash. In fact, it’s best enjoyed as a straight police procedural, set in a flat desert town so nondescript that it’s striking. The ex-army man both clashes and cooperates with the civilian policewoman (Charlize Theron) who takes on the case. She in turn runs up against both her resentful male colleagues and the military bureaucracy, but these are presented as merely obstacles in the way of the investigation, not as central themes. With yet another heavy hitter, Susan Sarandon, in a small but interesting role as Jones’s long-suffering wife, the movie seems like obvious Oscar bait, but except for the (literally) flag-waving ending it’s less heavy-handed than Crash. It’s got the element of tragedy, but less of the redemption, of Million Dollar Baby, the other Best Picture written by Haggis. The detective story, with the veteran trading his accumulated wisdom for the cop’s local savvy, is more compelling than its solution, which was vaguely unsatisfying. But I suppose that’s Haggis’s point, that war makes men do unexplainable things, even after the combat is over.
reviewed 10/26/07
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