Wandering around the video shop wondering what to get, I picked up ‘In the Valley of Elah‘. I’d never heard of it (odd considering it’s nominations and awards), which I took to be a bad sign, but the cast was pretty solid so I figured it would be a crap movie made somewhat watchable by it’s cast.

For the first time in quite a while I was pleasantly surprised by a film. The co-writer and director, Paul Haggis, also co-wrote and directed Crash - a fact I’m glad I didn’t know, because I hated that film.

In the Valley of Elah tells the story of a retired military policeman, Tommy Lee Jones, who goes looking for his son, who has gone missing since returning from an army tour in Iraq.

Frustrated by the bureaucracy and lack of progress in the investigation from the military or local police, Tommy Lee Jones tries to progress the investigation using his own methods.

He gets some reluctant help from a local detective played by Charlize Theron, but their efforts are hampered somewhat by the military’s practise of looking after their own affairs guardedly. Jason Patric does a great job in the part of the Lieutenant who frustrates some of their efforts to get to the truth.

This is essentially an old fashioned whodunnit, with good sized portions of intrigue, conspiracy and the odd plot twist.

It’s flawed, certainly, and has a couple of fairly twee scenes we could have done without, but overall this film felt like someone had actually sat down and actually written a script from start to finish - the story was thought out, and the film progressed and made sense from start to finish.

Basics, you would think, required for any film, and yet this film felt like a real film in a sea of dull imitations and scripts that were written by committee or made up as they filmed.

Wonderfully understatedly brilliant performances from almost everybody in this film which is, all in all, a solid film from start to finish which manages to be intrigueing and thought provoking, without being condescending or patronising, and only descending into uncomfortable tweeness once or twice.

Strange that this film doesn’t have a higher profile. Charlize Theron, frustrated by the films poor performance in the box office accused today’s movie fans of being ‘obsessed with fluff’. Is she right, or was this a marketing failure?

Of course, now I’ve built it up for you and you’ll probably hate it. Maybe you’d have been better off like me, picking it up knowing nothing about it and being pleasantly surprised…