Explain to me how a movie written and directed by Paul Haggis, someone who in the last 3 years has been nominated for five academy awards and won two of them, and starring the likes of Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon, and about the war in Iraq, can be leaving theaters after just 3 weeks? It's not playing in the City of Boston. I caught it in my suburban arty theater. Explain to me how the reviews can be mixed, usually complaining about how obvious it is and yet I think they've all missed the point?
The film dives right in with Hank Deerfield (Jones) being woken up by a phone call informing him that his son Michael (Jonathan Tucker) is AWOL. Hank says he's in Iraq but he's told his unit's been in New Mexico for a few days. Hank is a retired MP and goes off on his own to find his son. After a little bit, Michael's remains are found just off a kind of barren strip of road. Michael wasn't just killed, he was stabbed over 40 times, his body cut into small pieces, doused with something like gasoline, set afire, and left for animals to pick at. This is not a way that anyone should die. It's also not how any parent should see their child and yet both Hank and his wife Joan (Sarandon) demand to do just that.
The local police begin an investigation but the MPs quickly take over. Hank is looking into it himself and after a little bit gets civilian Detective Emily Sanders (Theron) to pursue the case despite orders to the contrary. Hank seems to have better investigative skills than anyone else. He chastises Sanders for how badly the department handled the crime scene and routinely finds leads after it seems like a dead end. He even pursues and takes down a suspect that escapes from 3 cops and requires all 3 cops to get him off the suspect.
The procedural aspects of the film are a little slow and drawn out. Hank gets Michael's damaged cell phone and is having someone restore video clips which come in one a day. A package arrives at their home that Michael sent to himself but Hank tells Joan not to open it. It's obvious to anyone who's seen a cop drama that the military is covering something up, we just have to wait for Hank to get through all the roadblocks.
And yet while it seems to play out that way, it really doesn't. Hank is wrong about things and this seems lost on most negative reviews I've seen. Sure there's an obvious theme that war is hell and has a dramatic effect on the boys we send to fight them (in one scene, explicitly pimply faced boys). But the reviews that say this is anti-Iraq is missing the point. It's anti-war because of what war does to people. Hank is old school military. He is honorable and disciplined. On the way to find his boy he stops at a school with a US flag flying upside down and teaches the immigrant responsible for it the error of his ways. He remakes the hospital corners on his motel bed. For a while I thought his only character development was that he cut himself shaving.
But there are pieces to pieced together. He strikes me as lonely. His relationship with Joan is stoic at best and there are hints of previous arguments and an inability to deal with them. Only one of Hank's friends is mentioned and they haven't spoken in years; Hank didn't know he retired 14 years prior and never mentioned that his first son died. He is gruff although mostly polite to anyone who is not military. Sanders points out he's a brilliant investigator but he's spending his time hauling gravel. In one flashback we see his son call him for help and he's completely incapable of offering any. In as much as the newly returned Iraqi soldiers can't talk about what they went through, neither can Hank. He's what they will become in 30 years.
The film is deliberately put together and the mood is glum. The colors are washed out and the music depressing; as is the subject matter. The performances are compelling. Jones and Sarandon are more obvious but Theron is excellent too. Her character isn't too smart (except in comparison to her coworkers), slept her way to her current position and as a result is disliked by her colleagues and boss. She's raising her son alone and seems a good person who gets inspired by Hank's persistence. The supporting characters may be one dimensional, but they are not Hollywood caricatures.
Those inured by too many CSI episodes may miss the point that this is not a police procedural, the last scene should make that clear. As horrendous as the murder itself is, the cause of the crime is so much worse. But sadly this is nothing new to this war.
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