Movie Review Scary Movie 3

Scary Movie 3 (2003) 

Directed by David Zucker 

Written by Craig Mazin, Pat Proft 

Starring Anna Faris, Anthony Anderson, Kevin Hart, Leslie Nielsen, Simon Rex, Eddie Griffin 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 23rd, 2003 

Scream was a film that changed the rules of modern horror forever by turning its conventions in on itself. Scary Movie had a timely “of the moment” quality even if the idea of parodying a film that was a parody in some respects itself was a little out there. Scary Movie succeeded, piling satire on top of pop culture scatology and earned its place amongst the best of modern madcap comedies. The sequel however could not match the energy of the original and most importantly its humor.

Now with a third sequel, Scary Movie has come to mirror the trilogy that inspired it. Scream 3 had none of the originality and creative energy of the first Scream and Scary Movie 3 is merely a pale imitation of its progenitor. The Zucker Brothers, the team behind the Airplane and Naked Gun films, take the creative reins from the Wayans Brothers. Even so, Scary Movie 3 is a limp parody of recent blockbusters ranging from The Matrix to The Others to M. Night Shyamalan's Signs and Eminem's 8 Mile. The modest 2002 horror hit The Ring provides the basis for much of the film’s satire.

Anna Faris returns as the series heroine Cindy Campbell, now working as a reporter ala Naomi Watts' character in The Ring. Cindy stumbles on two big news stories that may be connected, a videotape that promises death and crop circles in a small-town cornfield owned by Tom (Charlie Sheen in a parody of Mel Gibson's fallen priest in Signs). Simon Rex is George, Tom's younger brother and wannabe rapper a la Eminem in8 Mile. George is also Cindy's love interest in the film

None of the plot matters, of course, it's merely a jumping off point for movie parodies that reminded me of Weird Al Yankovic's song parodies. The film takes the plot of Signs or The Ring, recreates the scenes and simply changes the dialogue from melodrama to comedy. It's the same formula that worked so well in the original Scary Movie. However, the original smartly kept its focus on parodying one film at a time, Scary Movie 3 attempts to parody several different films all at once, at times more than one film in the same scene. The lack of focus forces the script to do a lot of explaining and re-explaining of what is being parodied. All of the exposition necessary to give context to the next gag is tiresome to say the least.

The film’s trailer is somewhat misleading. The trailer promises a Matrix parody with Queen Latifah and Eddie Griffin. In reality there is a bit of Matrix parody but Latifah and Griffin have more screen time in the trailer than in the actual film. I won't spoil the surprise of what actor plays the role of the Architect in another Matrix riff but it's one of the film’s few bright spots.

The film’s weak spots are numerous but especially glaring are its weak attempts at racial humor. The scenes that parody 8 Mile are completely off the mark and Simon Rex is especially overmatched attempting to send up Eminem who's verbal virtuosity is ten times funnier than any of the weak satire of Scary Movie 3. 

How do you send-up a character who himself is a brilliant parodist? You have to be able to top him and the Zucker Brothers never come close to any satire that Eminem hasn't already done himself and funnier. The Zucker's clearly lack the Wayans's sharp eye for racial humor. While watching the 8 Mile send-ups, you’re left to wonder how the Wayans Boys would have handled the same material and you know it would be far funnier.

The only thing Scary Movie 3 has going for it is Anna Faris who once again shows an astounding comedic ability to rise above even the most revolting indignities. Her Cindy Campbell has been beaten to heck in each of the three films and still Faris manages to shine. Faris takes on all of the lowest forms of humor with chipper aplomb and winks at the audience the whole way. She is the only element of Scary Movie 3 that works.

The Zucker Brothers with writing partner Jim Abrahams invented the parody genre. With Scary Movie 3 they may have effectively ended it from a creative standpoint. It's clear they have lost their deftness and comic touch in favor of half-assed, inane scatology. From a commercial standpoint unfortunately, the genre will likely have another life, it is clear this film will be a hit despite its innumerable flaws.

Movie Review Radio

Radio (2003)

Directed by Michael Tollin 

Written by Mike Rich 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard, Debra Winger, Sarah Drew 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 25th, 2003

Writer-Director-Producer Michael Tollin seems to aspire to mediocrity. A cursory look at his resume shows just that, a string of mediocre films as both a director and a producer. He has a particular affinity for the most mediocre of genres, the sports movie. With his partner, Brian Robbins, Tollin was a part of the predictable football movie Varsity Blues, the lame and predictable baseball movie Hardball and the God-awful Freddie Prinze Jr. movie Summer Catch. The latest addition to the Tollin-Robbins sports pantheon is Radio, a cloying tearjerker that hits all the manipulative notes.

The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a mentally challenged man named Radio, a nickname given to him by Coach Harold Jones, the coach of the local High School football team. Coach decides to help out Radio after finding some of his players harassing the poor guy. Coach makes Radio a part of the team, allowing him to take part in practices and eventually allowing him into the school and classes.

Radio's involvement with the team and the school is good for him but is met with some resistance by a local booster Frank Clay (Chris Mulkey), who doesn't like Radio because, well, because he's just mean. That is really the only reason the movie gives for his unnecessarily rude behavior toward Radio who everyone else in town loves.

S. Epatha Merkerson turns up in the unforgiving role of Radio's mother whose fate is foretold from her first appearance onscreen. The rest of the supporting cast is less than memorable. Debra Winger is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the coach's wife, and young Sarah Drew in her first live action film role (she did voice work on TV's Daria) is not bad as the coach's oft-forgotten daughter.

Ed Harris is the only real asset of the film. His stature and dignity infuse his role with more credibility than it deserves. As written, the character is rather wishy-washy liberal do-gooder but with Harris in the role, the character has more weight and the melodramatic script is improved with his presence and delivery.

As for Gooding, just add Radio to the growing list of roles that have marked his career's death spiral since his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire. I've written way too much about Gooding's self destruction and it's getting harder and harder to watch. Jerry Maguire continues to be one of my all time favorites and Gooding was a huge part of that. However, the goodwill he earned from his role as Rod Tidwell is completely gone and his presence in any film is becoming unwelcome.

As for Tollin and his producing partner Brian Robbins, Radio shows little improvement over their previous mediocre outings. While it's billed as a true story and there is a real man named Radio who lives for high school football in South Carolina, the movie of his life never once rings true. Rather it is the same market-tested family drama that is better left to Hallmark Hall of fame.

Movie Review: Apocalypto

Apocalypto (2006) 

Directed by Mel Gibson

Written by Mel Gibson, Farhad Safinia 

Starring Rudy Youngblood

Release Date December 8th, 2006 

Published December 7th, 2006 

I truly believe that Mel Gibson needs psychological counseling. I'm not joking. It's not just his very public personal problems, but also his career choices and bizarre blood fetish. All the way back to his Oscar winning epic Braveheart, to his blood soaked take on the death of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ and now his latest blood soaked adventure Apocalypto takes Mel's his sanguine obsession to new horrifying depths.

Apocalypto is more violent and gruesome than all three Saw pictures combined. It makes Mel's own Passion look like a kiddie picture. Gibson has gone over the deep end with his obsession with viscera and yet his direction is so confident and professional I'm tempted to forgive his bloodlust. I can't; but I'm tempted.

In 500 B.C the Mayan culture came to a bloody and violent end. The fear, tumult and consumption grew to such epic proportions that it simply could no longer sustain itself. Mel Gibson's Apocalypto picks up the story near the end as the decadent violence began spilling beyond the mayans own borders. Human hunters began rampaging through small villages murdering innocent tribes and taking hostages who will become human sacrifices to the mayan gods.

Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) is a member of a small tribe on the far periphery of the Mayan empire. A peaceful hunting group, the tribe is living idyllically in peace when a mayan hunting group overruns them. Jaguar Paw manages to hide his pregnant wife and daughter in a crevasse before joining the fight and being taken hostage. Before he is taken however, he is forced to watch as his father is murdered.

Jaguar Paw and much of his tribe are marched back to the Mayan enclave where a giant stone staircase has been erected. The stairs are covered in blood and guts and as Jaguar Paw looks up at this massive structure; sacrifices are already taking place and seem to have started and never stop. As he is marched to the top heads roll down the stairs and bodies piled in gruesome, stomach turning piles next to the bloody alter.

Only a miracle saves Jaguar Paw from becoming a sacrifice but his escape is not assured. The hunting group decides to play a dangerous game, allowing Jaguar Paw to run away as they fire arrows and spears at his back. When he finds his way back to the forest the film becomes an epic chase scene filled with exciting escapes and horrifyingly brutal hand to hand combat.

On the one hand I was literally turning green from the stomach turning violence of Apocalypto. On the other hand, Gibson's filming of this violence, and especially the electrifying chase scenes, is so compelling I wanted to really like this film. His skill is so strong and his direction so assured that even the brutality is exceptionally well directed. Gibson's bloodlust is absolutely repellent, but his skill as a filmmaker is remarkable.

Rudy Youngblood is a terrific young actor who does an exceptional job in seperating himself from the rest of the cast and earning our sympathy. His performance goes along way to making Apocalypto an absorbing human drama. If it just wasn't so beyond acceptable levels of brutality I could recommend this film. As it is, Apocalypto is simply to vicious and blood soaked for me to recommend it to anyone, no matter how strong their stomach may be.

Alfred Hitchcock managed to make Birds a menacing force without having them ripping out someones eyeball. Martin Scorsese uses gory violence sparingly in his The Departed which gives the graphic nature of that violence much more punch. Mel Gibson could stand to learn a few things from Hitchcock and Scorsese. The extreme nature of the violence Gibson depicts in Apocalypto never fails to shock but the repetitive use of gory viscera does become numbing after a while and takes a great deal away from the compelling aspects of this story.

A touch of subtlety and Apocalypto could have been an extraordinary, epic, action adventure. As it is, the only thing anyone will take away from the experience of Apocalypto is just how sick a human being Mel Gibson must be. Gibson is obsessed with blood and guts and while he may justify his bloodlust by saying that he is trying to be 'realistic', there is no justification for presenting such brutality. There is a way to be true to the violence of Apocalypto without exploiting the gory aspects of it.

Mel Gibson is a terrifically talented director. He could be a great director, one who goes down in history. Unfortunately his obsession with blood and guts, and rolling heads down stairs, and ripping out peoples hearts, and stacks of headless human bodies makes him nothing more than a slasher filmmaker. He is just a cut above snuff films with his fixation on viscera and gore in Apocalypto as well as Passion of The Christ and Braveheart.

There is another oddball aspect of Apocalypto that needs to be mentioned. Early in the film, as Gibson is establishing the Idyll nature of Jaguar Paw's village, the tribe hunts and as they do they play pranks on one another and speak in a fashion that reminded me of the offhand nature of a Seinfeld episode. This is kind of entertaining but Gibson's translation of the mayan language used by his characters leaves one to wonder if he is being true to his characters or just going for cheap laughs.

Mel Gibson is impossible for me to like as a person, but as a director his talent is undeniable. His direction of Apocalypto is professional, polished and compelling. However, his bloodlust is so disturbing you must once again wonder about his character. How can a filmmaker, or any human being for that matter, meditate so deeply on such extreme violence.

I'm sure Mel Gibson felt the violence of Apocalypto was necessary to tell this story but the extreme nature of that violence is so graphic and so horrifying that it is fair to question his mental state. No matter how well depicted, I simply cannot recommend this level of violence to anyone no matter their tolerance for extreme amounts of blood and guts.

Mel Gibson, please seek help.

Movie Review In the Cut

In the Cut (2003)

Directed by Jane Campion

Written by Jane Campion, Susanna Moore

Starring Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kevin Bacon 

Release Date October 31st, 2003 

Published October 30th, 2003 

Meg Ryan is at a serious career crossroads. She can no longer get by on her kewpie-doll romantic comedy roles (she's been replaced in those roles by Kate Hudson). She is now desperate to redefine herself in a manner that is appropriate to her age (42! Looks not a day over 30) and fading star power. In The Cut is the first attempt to change people's perception and while she delivers a fine performance, the film that surrounds her is an insultingly stupid, cop movie cliché.

In The Cut stars Ryan as Frannie, a creative writing teacher with an affinity for slang terms. She is planning a book about the subject with help from one of her students, a charismatic young black kid named Cornelius (Sharrief Pugh). The kid has an obvious crush on his teacher and there is the slightest bit of sexual tension between them. When the two meet up at a bar to trade new slang terms, Frannie witnesses a man being serviced by a woman in the bathroom. That woman is later found dead behind Frannie's apartment.

The officer investigating the case is Detective Malloy (Mark Ruffalo) who shows an immediate attraction to Frannie despite her frigid treatment of him in their first meeting. As he investigates the murder, which is linked to a series of murders by a serial killer, Malloy flirts terribly with Frannie and she relents to date him even though he persists with questions about the murder while on the date. Malloy is also quite blunt in his intentions about having Frannie in bed, telling her on the first date that he will fuck her in any way she wants.

Like most women, Frannie can't resist this guy who is obviously bad for her, so bad in fact that she begins to suspect him of the murders and still dates him and beds him. Her suspicions go back to the mystery man in the bar bathroom who's face she didn't see but who's odd wrist tattoo she does remember.

The other people in Frannie's life are her slutty sister Pauline (played with unending skill by Jennifer Jason Leigh), who suggests that Frannie go out with the cop if only to have sex with him. There is also Frannie's ex-boyfriend John (played by the uncredited Kevin Bacon), a mentally unbalanced med student who has taken to stalking her since she dumped him.

Each of the men in the film, including Malloy's partner Detective Rodriguez (Nick Damici), become suspects in the serial killings while female characters line up to be victims. Whether that is meant as an overt statement or not we are left to wonder. What is clear is that we have seen this movie before in a number of straight to video and late night HBO movies. Woman falls in love with a man who may be a killer while other characters act just shady enough to be suspect as well. Then the heroine goes out of her way to blindly place herself in danger in service of the idiot plot.

This is one tired old cliché and one that director Jane Campion should be ashamed to reuse. Campion is too skilled a writer and director for such an awfully conventional thriller plot. Based on a novel by Susanna Moore, who also helped in the adaptation, the only innovation Campion brings to this series of thriller clichés is her arty, pretentious, handheld camera style. Campion's camera bounces around in cars, fades in and out of focus and lends a gauzy haze to nearly every scene and it is eye-catching and quite well conceived. However the stylishness is entirely wasted on this idiot plot.

Of course what everyone is wondering about In The Cut is, how does Meg Ryan look naked? She looks terrific. Unfortunately, as Campion builds the sexual tension in every scene she forgets to make the sex in any way important to the plot. The sex scene between Meg and Mark Ruffalo is one of a number of well-acted scenes by these two excellent actors but the dumb, stupid, idiot plot, undermines both.

Anyone remember the Denzel Washington movie The Bone Collector? Remember how they chose that film’s serial killer by pulling a cast member's name out of a hat (I think that is how they did that). In The Cut does exactly the same thing. The film seems to choose its serial killer randomly and completely outside of the plot and established characters. This forces Ryan into one forced scene of stupidity after another before finally ending with a quiet thud.

It's doubtful that so much talent and skill has gone into making such an awful film. In The Cut is well crafted and well acted but the story is so stupid that you hate it even more than if it had been a complete disaster.

Movie Review Redline

Redline (2007) 

Directed by Andy Cheng

Written by Robert Forman 

Starring Tim Matheson, Eddie Griffin, Angus MacFadyen

Release Date April 13th, 2007 

Published April 14th, 2007 

I've never heard of Chicago Pictures before but based on the company's first feature, the misogynist racing picture Redline, this is likely some fly by night outfit unsatisfied with fate as a direct to video product purveyor. Redline is an ugly, low budget Z-movie that only Roger Corman could love. Babes in bikinis are one thing but when the female lead is cast only for the look of her bust in various tight tops you know you are not dealing with a high class outfit.

How can a film so blindingly inept as Redline actually get released to theaters? It is a complete mystery. I have seen films made by teenagers on a budget no bigger than a six pack of Mountain Dew make a better movie on a cellphone camera than Redline. To be fair, the kid with the cellphone did have the advantage of a far better script.

Ostensibly the story of gangsters and an illegal off road classic car race, Redline is a z-movie take on Fast and the Furious without artistic integrity. A guy just back from the army accepts an invitation from his gangster uncle to participate in this illegal race only after his beloved cousin is killed in the course of a race.

Our army man is determined to find the people responsible for his cousins death and in the process finds a love interest in the form of a sexy car mechanic who gets roped into the race by a shady gambler (Eddie Griffin) and is then lost by the gambler as part of a bet on the race. Not knowing that she was the subject of a wager, our mechanic friend is not exactly a good sport about all of this.

The climax is an inevitable damsel in distress rescue with guns and explosions and no doubt a big smooch at the end for our heroes. I have no idea what actually happened at the end of Redline because I walked out. Yes, I know, that is not very professional of me. In my defense; you haven't seen how truly excremental Redline is.

There is only so much misogyny that I can put up with and Redline simply crosses the line. In the background of nearly every scene of Redline are women dancing in cages, women running around in bikinis or, directly in front of the camera is the female lead of the film in a too small tank top pointing her breasts toward the screen.

Now, as a man I won't deny enjoying looking at beautiful women in various states of undress. However, if I want to objectify women, I'll do it in the privacy of my own home. Redline is so disgustingly misogynist, so leeringly creepy, that it really feels like porn even though there is no nudity. Oh yeah! no nudity and yet Redline manages to feel dirtier than most of the softcore garbage on Cinemax late at night.

Mostly, it's the perverse attitude of the film. The fact that there is no strong female presence that isn't somehow an objectified piece of meat. The fact that every frame is filled with the cast offs of Girls Gone Wild. I realize that Redline is all in good fun and that the women in the movie take part of their own volition but I failed to see the point of it all.

Making things worse is the utter ineptitude of the making of Redline. From the awful, grubby cinematography of Bill Butler to the slipshod editing of Dallas Puett to director Andy Cheng's stunningly incompetent direction. It's fair to say I was almost as offended by the sheer awfulness of Redline as I was by its attitudes.

Blindingly awful, Redline is an example of the kind of film that for a long time didn't make it to theaters. This trash used to go directly to video stores. Now, more and more, movies of this ilk are ending up at the multiplex and it is an absolute mystery to me. A movie like Redline may not have cost anything to be made but how much money could this garbage have made in the week it was in theaters? Enough to pay for the film that was wasted on it?

I doubt it.

Movie Review Hancock

Hancock (2008) 

Directed by Peter Berg 

Written by Vince Gilligan 

Starring Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Jason Bateman, Eddie Marsan

Release Date July 2nd, 2008 

Published July 1st, 2008 

It's the fourth of July weekend and that means Will Smith is back in theaters. This time the world's biggest box office draw is playing a drunken superhero with a major image problem in Hancock. Directed by Peter Berg, Hancock is not your typical Will Smith movie. Playing against type as a charisma free jerk, Will Smith is still funny and fun to watch but also slightly off.

Laying on a bus bench in Los Angeles, with liquor bottles laying at his feet, Hancock (Smith) looks like a homeless guy. However, he happens to be a superhero who makes it his business to get the bad guys and protect the innocent, regardless of the damage he does along the way. Hancock causes as much or more destruction saving lives and protecting property as the bad guys do committing their crimes.

No wonder then that the people of LA despise their superhero savior. Media savvy image consultant Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) decides he will try and change that negative image. Hancock rescued Ray when his car became trapped on railroad tracks with a train bearing down. Naturally, Hancock stopping the train may have saved Ray's life but derailing the train damaged hundreds of other cars and will no doubt cost millions in clean up and other such costs.

At Least Ray is grateful, he even invites Hancock home for dinner with his family, wife Mary (Charlize Theron) and son Aaron (Jae Head). Mary is exceptionally uncomfortable around Hancock while Aaron is the rare kid who sees Hancock as a hero. Ray makes it his goal to turn Hancock from a pariah into a hero by making people miss him. The plan involves Hancock actually going to jail for all of his destructive behavior before being sprung by the very people who put him away after they realize how much they need his help. 

Meanwhile, Mary is holding back something she knows about Hancock; a revelation that eventually becomes an important bit of plot. But the less said about that the better.   

Anyone who has read the Watchmen comics or saw Pixar's The Incredibles will recognize elements of each that combine to create Hancock. Alan Moore's Watchmen series with its jaundiced view of flawed, failing heroes no doubt informs Hancock's flawed alcoholic act. Fans of the Incredibles on the other hand will recognize a major plot point of that film where heroes were forced to give up saving the world from evil after being sued too often and blamed for the damage caused in their effort to serve and protect.

Hancock is nowhere near as special as its influences but with a terrific cast it manages to be consistently entertaining. Smith, playing against type as a charisma free jerk, manages a star performance unlike any he has delivered before. I particularly enjoyed the way Hancock dealt with his anger in ways only a superhero could.

When it comes to bringing the funny in Hancock Jason Bateman is the comic relief. Bateman's nonplussed facial reactions and wry comments on Hancock's brutish behavior are terrifically timed and quite reminiscent of his wonderfully sly Arrested Development character Michael Bluth whose constant astonishment at the depths of his family's ruthlessness was one of the great running gags in TV history.

In an interesting coincidence it was during Arrested Development that Bateman first met and sparked great chemistry with Charlize Theron. Now Theron and Bateman are together again and the chemistry remains strong. Theron's Mary is unfortunately underwritten and suffers from a mid-movie twist that seems to exist only to justify hiring an Oscar winning actress such as Ms. Theron. 

Still, despite the way Theron's Mary is treated by the plot, Theron sparks with Bateman and in a different way with Will Smith. Though you will find the plot hard to believe, Theron's penetrating gaze aimed in Smith's direction communicates a great deal of emotion without words because Ms. Theron is such a terrific actress. Unfortunately, by the fifth time she stands and stares Hancock down, you will want to scream at the screen for her to just say what she is thinking already.

Hancock is entertaining and involving if more than a little uneven and lacking in depth. There are a wealth of possibilities for a story such as this but with little care for creating believable back stories, or as the comics call'em, origin stories for the hero and his various nemeses, Hancock becomes merely a series of well planned effects and stunts and not much more.

Those effects and stunts are fun but not entirely satisfying and thus Hancock is only good and not quite great.

Movie Review In the Valley of Elah

In the Valley of Elah (2007) 

Directed by Paul Haggis 

Written by Paul Haggis 

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Jonathan Tucker, Frances Fisher, Susan Sarandon 

Release Date September 14th, 2007 

Published September 13th, 2007 

I'm going to come off ignorant or insensitive in this review. Of this I have no doubt. I can't begin to guess what is like for our soldiers in Iraq and thus to draw conclusions, especially from a movie, is going to bring out my ignorance to some readers and my insensitivity to others. Nevertheless, I can't dismiss In The Valley of Elah and the extraordinary pain and anger it evokes and where that anger comes from. Written and directed by Paul Haggis, In The Valley of Elah is a sometimes maddening, sometimes dawdling and always compelling drama of a father, a son, and a war that should not be fought.

Growing up in the home of Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) a boy knew he was going into the military. Hank is the kind of patriotic American who gets up early to help properly raise the flag over the middle school. Mike Deerfield (Jonathan Tucker), whether he was ready or not, went to Iraq because he wanted to make his father proud.

When the call comes that Mike has gone AWOL from the Fort Rudd military base in New Mexico, Hank thinks his son couldn't possibly be missing in New Mexico, he's still in Iraq. Turns out that Mike's unit came home several days earlier and, for some reason, he didn't call home. Thinking his son is drunk and in the bed of some lovely young local; Hank drives through the night to Fort Rudd to help find his son.

What Hank eventually discovers is that his son is dead, butchered and burned in a vacant field on the edge of the base. Sensing that the military is set to sweep his son's death under the rug, Hank turns to the local cops and detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) who resists the potential jurisdictional fight with the military until Hank shows her evidence that both the locals and the military investigators missed. Thus begins a murder mystery that uncovers truths about Michael that Hank may not have ever wanted to know. The son he sent to Iraq was not the man who returned from Iraq.

Paul Haggis directs In The Valley Of Elah with an eye toward meditative sadness. Mixing an almost subliminal anti-war message into a rather straight edge murder mystery, In The Valley of Elah can be quite maddening. The film distracts itself with murder mystery conventions while truly being about the horrors of war and the trauma of the young men forced to fight it.

To point out that our soldiers could be vulnerable to great sadness and pain after having experienced war is considered by some to be unpatriotic. That is the cover that pro-war politicians take in order to justify the continuation of a failed policy that has cost us all so much. A generation of young men dying, losing limbs and scarred forever emotionally, all for what? What are they fighting for?

In The Valley of Elah offers this sentiment under the guise of a murder mystery and maybe this is the way to get some people to listen. Drawn to the movie by the mystery plot people will be exposed to the pain, the sadness and the futility of this war. Even as we are told that the war is turning around we cannot forget the young men and women who died not knowing what it was they were fighting for.

The final image of In The Valley of Elah is the one straightforward moment of commentary in the film. It's a powerful symbol of a distressed nation dealing with losses it can hardly begin to understand. Lied into a war with the wrong country; with loved ones dying for a cause that seemed to change with the wind, In The Valley of Elah captures the heartache and devastation of the losses we should all feel for allowing this travesty to begin and continue today.