by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A Rated R 124 min
Writer/director Paul Haggis’ latest film is a masterfully crafted murder mystery framed in the affects of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on returning Iraq War veterans. Haggis’ purposefully plodding pacing builds tension between the characters. Haggis’ war commentary is couched in the context of how his character/soldiers, who were drilled to kill on instinct, turn-off this visceral reaction to a confrontation. More significantly, Haggis shows how these soldiers are unable to cope with PTSD, which causes a litany of socio-psychological domestic problems.
Tommy Lee Jones portrays Hank Deerfield, a retired Army Criminal Investigative Command (CID) detective whose son Mike has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. Much to Hank’s dismay, Mike turns up missing. So Hank kisses his wife, Joan (Susan Sarandon), gets in his pickup truck, and drives to Hank’s duty station near Las Vegas to look for him.
Being an experienced detective, Hank goes right to Mike’s buddies in his platoon to find out when they last saw him and other basic gumshoe work. Hank finds Mike’s cell phone and although it’s trashed, he pays an expert to clean it up to find whatever videos or still images are on the phone. Saved on he phone’s media storage are grainy images of battle and other disturbing videos. Hank then goes to the local police station and meets Det. Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) who, at first, dismisses him. But in his blunt forceful manner, he tells her his son just came back from doing his duty in Iraq and his disappearance doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. She gets his point and promises him she will look into his son’s disappearance.
The next day Sanders’ unit is assigned a murder case when body parts are found in the desert. It turns out the body was dismembered and burned. Shockingly, the body is Hank’s son, Mike. At first, the Army claims to have jurisdiction, but later, because of Hank’s methodical detective work, Sanders’ unit gets the case and Hank turns his grief into intense focus. He works with Sanders to find out who murdered his son. On first blush, the grizzly murder looks like a drug deal gone bad. However, Hank believes that someone close to Hank did this, and he pressures Sanders to interrogate Mike’s three friends who were with him the night he died. They claim they dropped him off so he could go find drugs, but Hank doesn’t buy it.
Hank is obsessed with finding his son’s killer. He rents a motel room and spends hours watching the videos uploaded to his computer. This gives him clues to what happened. He sees how this war has warped his son and his friends. Still, there is no hard evidence. Sanders and Hank have a shaky bond. She is intimidated by Hank’s gruff and controlling persona. But she gets over that and learns from Hank. He’s an old pro who investigates every lead no matter how seemingly trite it may be.
Sanders is a single mom and has been fighting sexism in her unit. The other detectives think she slept her way to detective, so they don’t respect her. Thus this case becomes her cause celebre to gain respect and solve a heinous murder that took Hank’s second son. Gradually, Sanders begins to respect Hank and his instinctual detective work. She imagines if her own son was murdered and immediately empathizes with him.
Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron created remarkably sensitive character chemistry together. His intensity coupled with her personality conflict with him make an intriguing pairing. As the two detectives narrow down the suspects, Hank feels the strain of channeling his grief into his investigation. The Iraq war has cost him two sons and he fears his wife will never forgive him for encouraging Mike to enlist. As a Vietnam vet, he knows what Mike and his buddies were going through. Adjusting to civilian life after seeing such carnage in Iraq demanded professional help. But there’s a waiting list for soldiers with PTSD to get into government funded programs. Meanwhile, in real life, tragedies like Mike’s murder happen on regular basis.
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EU Critic’s Choice Awards
