In the Valley of Elah (2007)
Directed by Paul Haggis
A career officer and his wife work with a police detective to uncover the truth behind their son's disappearance following his return from a tour of duty in Iraq.
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What critics compared In the Valley of Elah to
He directed " Crash " and wrote " Million Dollar Baby ," both Oscar winners, and was nominated as co-writer of " Letters from Iwo Jima ."
The single thing Paul Haggis has in common with Cronenberg is that they're both Canadians, although Haggis did steal the title of Cronenberg's superb 1996 vehicular Liebestod for his horrendous, Oscar-winning filibuster, Crash .
Whereas that movie gave itself over too often to melodrama, "Elah" resists, which can't be said for Haggis' last movie, the cheaply obvious yet Academy Award-winning "Crash."
The provocative writer with a string of masterful films to his credit ( "Million Dollar Baby" , "Crash" , which he also directed), has never been afraid of hot-button topics (race, euthanasia).
It's a reference writer/director Haggis chose deliberately and provocatively, just as he connected the disparate lives of his Oscar-winning previous movie, Crash.
His work behind the camera – Crash, In the Valley of Elah and now this – proves time and again his eagerness to dole out ham-fisted significance with calculated tugs at the heartstrings.
Middlebrow sensibility and heavy-handed (if also honest) approach define the work of Paul Haggis as a writer-director (“Crash,” “In the Valley of Elah”), and if there’s a genre that he really is not adept at it is the thriller.
With “The Next Three Days,” writer/director Paul Haggis steps into the thriller genre after losing himself to matters of the heart with films such as “Crash” and “In the Valley of Elah.”
" Crash ," " In the Valley of Elah ," and even the script for " Million Dollar Baby " are all somewhat failed, in lesser or greater degrees, and watching Haggis simply work the pulses, guts and adrenal glands of the audience is decidedly more pleasant than having him clamber into our laps to appeal to our hearts, minds and souls.
Haggis (“Crash,” “In the Valley of Elah,”) has rewritten the screenplay of the 2008 French drama “Pour elle” by Fred Cavaye and Guillaume Lemans, which co-starred Vincent Lindon and Diane Kruger, recasting a mismatched Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks in the leads.
He did it repeatedly in the Oscar-winning “Crash” and again in “In the Valley of Elah.”
He directed " Crash " and wrote " Million Dollar Baby ," both Oscar winners, and was nominated as co-writer of " Letters from Iwo Jima ."
The provocative writer with a string of masterful films to his credit ( "Million Dollar Baby" , "Crash" , which he also directed), has never been afraid of hot-button topics (race, euthanasia).
A key exchange in his script for Million Dollar Baby relates to a dying pooch, and now here we have Charlize Theron’s New Mexico detective Emily Sanders presented with a case of domestic canicide.
That theme, however, is at first artfully disguised in the film, which was written and directed by Paul Haggis, prime author of Crash as well as the writer or co-writer of such excellent Clint Eastwood screenplays as Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Haggis, the Canadian-born screenwriter of the powerfully underplayed Million Dollar Baby and writer/director of the pyrotechnic and overwrought Crash, wisely scales his film to Jones' undemonstrative performance, his words rationed as strictly as bullets during a siege.
Paul Haggis (the writer and director of "Crash" and the co-writer of "Letters from Iwo Jima," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Casino Royale," and "Million Dollar Baby") wrote and directed "In the Valley of Elah," inspired, as the opening titles tell us, "by actual events."
If you want to see recent movies that fit more accurately into the war genre designation you could check out Kimberly Peirce’s “Stop-Loss” (2008) or Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah” (2007).
Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss , Paul Haggis’ In the Valley of Elah and Paul Greengrass’ Green Zone asked searching questions about the human costs of America’s post-9/11 interventions—questions that echoed through near-empty theaters.
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When Chandor does finally try for a money shot of his own, it comes off as cheap: a too-painterly, spattered concrete canvas of blood and oil that challenges the upside-down American flag at the end of In the Valley of Elah for egregious, anguished symbolism.
Unlike Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah," Peirce doesn't try to force her own opinion of the rights or wrongs of war down the viewer's throat, and stronger writing keeps it from pandering to uninformed movie audiences like the dumbed-down "Home of the Brave."
Her film credits include Revolutionary Road, In the Valley of Elah, Me and Orson Wells, Meek's Cutoff and It's Complicated.