In the Valley of Elah
List Price:
Our Price: $14.99
You Save: $4.99 (25%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $1.89 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Barry Corbin, Frances Fisher, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Wayne DuvallBrand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Roger Deakins
Composer: Mark Isham
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 121 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of In the Valley of Elah
DVD Review: Valley of Elah best film of year! Worthy of the Academy Awards
Summary: 5 Stars
An extremely well acted and well thought out film that was the best movie I have seen in then last 15 months. Why this film had not received any Academy Awards is beyond me.DVD Review: In the Valley of Elah
Summary: 5 Stars
I was so surprised when this movie arrived as it got here within 3 days.
I would certainly buy from this person again.
Thanks, Susan
DVD Review: A political allegory masquerading as a murder drama
Summary: 5 Stars
American soil in the lower 48 has been attacked twice in the past 70 years -- on Dec. 7, 1941 and on Sept. 11, 2001. Both times it resulted in lengthy military engagements that tested our national character and resolve. Some might say they also defined our national character and resolve.
World War II produced many memorable films including "The Best Years of Our Lives," a movie about the mechanics of readjusting to civilian life after the war. This film, based apparently on real life events from 2004, will, I believe, have long-term affects showing our adjustment to the events in Iraq.
While World War II was, by most people's standards, a just war against a tide of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia. Today, questions abound whether American involvmement in Iraq exhibits similar value. Now six years after our 2003 invasion and five years since the events portrayed in this film took place, an ugly side of America is shown in this movie.
The film is about a soldier returned from Iraq that goes AWOL and is later found killed. The film shows what happened and the long search for this truth by the police, military establishment, and the soldier's parents. It is played out by two of America's best actors -- Tommy Lee Jones as the ex-military investigator father of the deceased soldier, and Charlize Theron as the police investigator trying to overcome bureaucracy and roadblocks to find out what happened. Together, they put on a great show that will keep you involved for the duration. While perhaps not the greatest filmmaking, it surely succeeds as political theater.
We saw a lot of this kind of thing after Vietnam, another long conflict around the world based on spurious motives. Our enemy in Vietnam was said to be communism; in Iraq it is said to be terrorism. Vietnam spawned coming home readjustment films like "Coming Home", "The Deer Hunter" and, my favorite, "Rolling Thunder," all about returning veterans making the adjustment to civilian life. In each case, the life they came back to was more complicated and less fulfilling than the one they left for one reason: the war changed them as people in ways that weren't good.
This is the fundamental message of "In the Valley of Elah", whose content is based on the real-life killing of one soldier. Its broader vision, however, goes way beyong that case and postulates that our involvement in Iraq, like our involvement in Vietnam, will divide, weaken and desensitize us to other's suffering -- just as Vietnam did.
I think this postulate works well -- the reason I gave this film a 5 star review -- for a very personal reason. A few days before I saw this film I had dinner with my grandson and his family. He had just returned from six months military duty in Iraq. I saw a person changed from the one I'd seen a half-year earlier. He smoked more, drank more, and swore more. He had more tattoos, also, but that's beside the point.
Even more telling were his comments about Iraq, where he was stationed in the north, Kurd country. I asked if he saw violence; yes, every week, he said. "You don't see where it's coming from so it's hard to shoot back," he said. His comments aobut the nation itself turned exceedingly negative. At one point, he wondered aloud why anyone would want to live in that place. "They should nuke it and start over," he said.
This is the nihilism that is exhibited in "In the Valley of Elah." This is a startlingly good film, exceptionally well acted in the lead roles, with a timely and absorbing story, probably based on something that really happened. Its longer-term themes, however, are deafeningly negative. I expect it's the kind of film we will see a lot of once our invovlement in Iraq is history.
DVD Review: this is a powerful film
Summary: 5 Stars
This powerful film tells a story that leads the viewer to realize that we are all a part of a war machine beyond our control and we all pay the price. There are lots of reviews about this movie. I wish more people could watch it ... DVD Review: How We Face Our Fears
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent film from Paul Haggis, the writer and director of the 2004 Oscar winning Best Picture "Crash." It is a film that examines some of the horrors military men and women often face. It is a film that focuses on the suffering many families of fallen or returning soldiers often face. The film is not for the faint of heart.
The acting by Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon and others is superb. The direction, cinematography, editing, pacing, music, and storytelling are first rate.
The title "In The Valley of Elah" refers to the Biblical story of David and Goliath. The film investigates and speculates on how our formative stories may shape our aspirations. And the film explores how the complexities of reality often challenge us, sometimes leading us off the course and away from the ideals we originally aspired toward.
Description of In the Valley of Elah
Mike Deerfield returns to the U.S. after his tour of duty in Iraq and abruptly goes missing. His father Hank, a spit-and-polish ex-MP from the Vietnam era, goes looking for him. What he finds goes to the heart of American combat experiences in the Iraqi conflict. Academy Award?-winning* Crash filmmaker Paul Haggis teams with Oscar?- winning* actors Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon in a probing, powerful, fact-based look at fathers and sons.and at a nation and the young soldiers it sends into battle. Jones plays Hank, whose quest lays bare a tangled web of cover-up, murder, mystery and profound revelation about the personal costs of war.In career Army officer Hank Deerfield's worldview, the American military exists to bring order to the world, and honor and dignity to every one of its soldiers. As played by Tommy Lee Jones, in a layered performance that will haunt the viewer long after the film is over, Deerfield wears the Army life like he does his standard-issue white T-shirts--unconsciously making a cheap motel bed with crisp inspection-ready corners. Yet if war is hell, the purgatory for the relatives of damaged soldiers can cause far more anguish, and Paul Haggis' quietly devastating In the Valley of Elah tells this story through Deerfield, who is desperately trying to piece together the fate of his adored son Mike, a soldier in Iraq.
Mike's company has returned from duty, but he is missing; Hank flies from Tennessee to Fort Rudd in the Southwest, to conduct his own investigation into the disappearance. There he meets a smart but put-upon police officer (Charlize Theron, glammed-down but still showing a bit too much sexy collarbone for a cop) who also smells something off in the Army's official story of the disappearance. The two form an unlikely team, but as a friend tells Deerfield early on, "You gotta trust somebody sometime, Hank," and Mike's vanishing is Hank's tipping point.
As Hank pieces together the horrifying story of Mike's fate, the incremental pain becomes etched in Jones' ragged features, and the camera captures all of it--far more powerfully than could a million words of reportage from the front lines. Theron's performance is also strong, and Susan Sarandon is moving if underutilized as Hank's grief-stricken wife, robbed of the simple nuclear family life she so wanted. "They shouldn't send heroes to places like Iraq," says one of Mike's buddies late in the film, and it's the viewers' collective sorrow--and the film's great achievement--to feel that at the deepest human level. --A.T. Hurley
General DVDs
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Bestsellers in General DVDs
Frost/ NixonUniversal; Release date: 2009-04-21; DVD
Best price: $11.39
Price in other shops:
Lost in AustenImage Entertainment; Release date: 2009-04-14; DVD
Best price: $14.98
Price in other shops:
AustraliaTwentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-03-03; DVD
Best price: $12.99
Price in other shops:
DoubtRelease date: 2009-04-07; DVD
Best price: $14.43
Price in other shops:
True Blood: The Complete First Season (HBO Series)Release date: 2009-05-19; DVD
Best price: $38.99
Price in other shops:
FireproofSony; Release date: 2009-01-27; DVD
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
The ReaderGenius; Release date: 2009-04-14; DVD
Best price: $12.30
Price in other shops:
The WrestlerTwentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-04-21; DVD
Best price: $11.49
Price in other shops:
Marley and Me (Single-Disc Edition)Twentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-03-31; DVD
Best price: $10.55
Price in other shops:
Slumdog MillionaireTwentieth Century Fox; Release date: 2009-03-31; DVD
Best price: $10.40
Price in other shops:
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
Atonement (Widescreen Edition)UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.; Release date: 2008-03-18; DVD
Best price: $4.76
Price in other shops:
Before the Devil Knows You're DeadImage Entertainment; Release date: 2008-04-15; DVD
Best price: $8.35
Price in other shops:
We Own the NightSony; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $4.38
Price in other shops:
The Brave One (Widescreen Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-02-05; DVD
Best price: $2.39
Price in other shops:
There Will Be BloodPARAMOUNT PICTURES; Release date: 2008-04-08; DVD
Best price: $11.99
Price in other shops:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert FordWarner Brothers; Release date: 2008-02-05; DVD
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops:
Gone Baby Goneby Casey Affleck
Buena Vista Home Video; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $9.79
Price in other shops:
American Gangster (2-Disc Unrated Extended Edition)UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOME ENTERTAIN.; Release date: 2008-02-19; DVD
Best price: $6.50
Price in other shops:
No Country for Old MenRelease date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops:
Michael Clayton (Widescreen Edition)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-02-19; DVD
Best price: $2.37
Price in other shops: