Ebert on "Elah"
Last Friday Rogert Ebert delivered, for my money, the most perceptive and best-written review of In The Valley of Elah that I've seen anywhere.
"I don't think there's a scene in the movie that could be criticized as 'acting,'with quotation marks," Ebert observes. "When Susan Sarandon, who has already lost one son to the Army, now finds she has lost both, what she says to [her husband] Tommy Lee Jones over the telephone is filled with bitter emotion but not given a hint of emotional spin. She says it the way a woman would, if she had held the same conversation with this man for a lifetime.
"The movie is about determination, doggedness, duty and the ways a war changes a man. There is no release or climax at the end, just closure. Even the final dramatic gesture only says exactly what Deerfield explained earlier that it says, and nothing else.
"That tone follows through to the movie's consideration of the war itself. Those who call In the Valley of Elahanti-Iraq war will not have been paying attention. It doesn't give a damn where the war is being fought. Hank Deerfield isn't politically opposed to the war. He just wants to find out how his son came all the way home from Iraq and ended up in charred pieces in a field. Because his experience in Vietnam apparently had a lot to do with crime investigation, he's able to use intelligence as well as instinct.
"And observe how Charlize Theron, as the detective, observes him, takes what she can use and adds what she draws from her own experience."
Ebert got one tiny thing wrong, though. He quotes an early back-and-forth in which Jones tells Sarandon he's going to drive to the New Mexico military base where his son was stationed and do some poking around. "It's a two-day drive," she says. Jones' reply, according to Ebert, is "Not the way I'll drive it." Nope -- he actually says, "For some people."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 16, 2007 at 2:51 AM
comment #1
EDouglas
says ...
I'm not sure, but I already think this is the most overrated movie of the year.... and this was from someone who LOVED Crash... 10/10 and in my Top 3 for the year. This was just dull and overly long.. Haggis could have trimmed 15 minutes easily (probably about 2 minutes from that really long hug between Jones and Sarandon in the hospital). The movie was good, but not as great as some people seem to be claiming.
Posted by EDouglas
at September 16, 2007 4:35 AM
comment #2
Dave
says ...
Wait a sec-- Roger Ebert says it's not anti-Iraq War, yet Jeff says it is. I don't know who to believe anymore! ;-).
Off-topic. . . I saw The Kingdom last night on the sneak. Jeff was correct in his earlier write-up-- it's like CSI: Riyadh-- but I found the movie extremely effective because (wait for it) it was subtle and workmanlike. Aside from the stylish-but-still-clunky opening credits (a.k.a. "Let's take three minutes to explain Saudi Arabian history to all the morons who have never bothered to pay attention to history outside of the Hitler Channel"), I thought the movie took a lot of pains to let the events speak for themselves.
And imagine my surprise that a Hollywood movie let Muslims terrorists be the bad guys! (Minor spoiler alert)
When Jamie Foxx presents the retired bomb-maker with the detonator and discovers it was American-military made, I was waiting to discover later that we were behind the bombings all along. Instead of going for that clumsy (and tired) cliche, The Kingdom just lets that hang out there as just another example of "blowback" at work. I was surprised at that level of restraint.
Great ending, too. It could have come off as precious ("Oh look, big bad America has created yet another terrorist, we're condemned to the cycle of violence yet again"), but I think it was realistic: there will always be bad people in our world, people who will use whatever excuses they need in order to inflict pain, suffering and oppression on the innocent. Americans aren't always the good guys (Foxx makes that point nicely in the scene at the Prince's palace), but at least we try. We look at the innocent dead and feel guilt and wonder what we can do better to avoid that happening again; our jihadist enemies look at innocent dead as a good day at the office. I was surprised that I saw a Hollywood movie in 2007 that actually showed that.
END SPOILER
One problem with the film, a big problem, that I'm sure Jeff will agree with: Jeremy Piven was wrong, wrong, wrong as the State Department guy in Saudi Arabia. I love Piven, but I'm sorry, "Ari" is NOT someone who would be a diplomat, let alone sent to a place like Saudi Arabia. The back-slapping and joking act he had going on rang false every time he showed up on the screen, and sucked me out of the movie. He wasn't enough to ruin it, but wow, what a bad casting and acting choice in an otherwise exacting and professional movie (after this and Friday Night Lights, Peter Berg is easily praised).
Anyway, The Kingdom isn't amazing, and it's not Oscar-worthy in any realm, but it's enjoyable and effective and a "smart" action movie, which everyone knows is a very rare beast indeed.
Posted by Dave
at September 16, 2007 7:49 AM
comment #3
mrbill
says ...
http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Celebrities/0,,2-1225-2108_2183204,00.html
Posted by mrbill
at September 16, 2007 12:33 PM
comment #4
le corbeau
says ...
Read this article in the Wall Street Journal-- it's not a pro-Bush polemic, it's a piece of reportage about a few of the leaders who have emerged in Iraq:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010610
Now read what Ebert says about In the Valley of Elah, especially this line:
It doesn't give a damn where the war is being fought.
Elah may well be a worthy film, but at the same time, am I the only one who feels that a fantastic story, full of rich and colorful characters, full of hope and tragedy and drama, is being completely ignored by Hollywood? Wouldn't you kill to see the movie a David Lean would have made out of characters such as the ones Ajami sketches here?
This is why I'm so down on movies that force the Vietnam framework onto Iraq-- because Iraq is itself, and it deserves to be treated seriously, thoughtfully, deeply, it deserves to be portrayed as what it really is, in all its color and drama. Obviously, to judge by the fact that 15 of them are in production right now, the Iraq-is-just-like-Vietnam movie is an easy sell in Hollywood. But why should we honor them for doing what comes easily?
Posted by le corbeau
at September 16, 2007 3:51 PM
comment #5
BurmaShave
says ...
Agreed. Khalid Abdalla as Abu Reisha.
Posted by BurmaShave
at September 17, 2007 2:56 AM
comment #6
louboutins57
says ...
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