GRADE: A

Engrossing both as a serpentine police procedural and anti-war drama, this moving and suspenseful mystery—based on actual events—examines the disappearance of a young soldier just back from extended duty in Iraq whose charred and dismembered remains later turn up in a New Mexico desert.

Before Mike Deerfield’s body is discovered, which occurs early in director Paul Haggis’ powerful but unnerving In the Garden of Elah, Mike’s father, Hank (Tommy Lee Jones), a retired career military investigator, arrives at Fort Rudd after learning his son has been reported as AWOL.

It’s while attempting to pin down his son’s whereabouts that Hank meets Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron), a policewoman recently promoted to detective; a status some of her male coworkers clearly resent, perhaps with some justification. That fact is important only as another indication of Haggis and Mark Boal’s unsparing screenplay, which doesn't play favorites.

Once Mike’s remains are found and it’s determined he was brutally murdered, Hank and Emily become on-again-off-again partners in the search for his killers. The local authorities and the military’s chief investigator, Lt. Kirklander (Jason Patric), believe Mike might have been dealing drugs and that Mexican drug lords could be responsible for his murder.

Hank and Emily aren’t buying it. They believe some of Mike’s fellow soldiers could be involved, although the handful of men he served with—also returned stateside—seem unlikely suspects, with no apparent animosities or grudges to explain why they might commit such a heinous crime.

The expansion of these plot points is exceptionally well handled, but In the Valley of Elah is about more than solving a murder. Another part of the story, aided by partially corrupted cell phone videos taken during Mike’s time overseas, begins to paint a picture of a son the father never knew, deepening the mystery and casting a pall over the entire search.

These developments open the door to many unsettling aspects of war and the people who wage it, with In the Valley of Elah dotted by several disturbing sequences illustrating the tremendous toll paid by American service personnel in body and mind. Yet, for all that heaviness, Haggis manages to make the film entirely watchable by using the visceral stuff only when necessary and never laboring over it.

The entire cast—particularly Jones and Theron—is excellent (Josh Brolin has a terrific extended cameo). The pacing is deliberate, but highly effective; the cinematography sublime and the settings kept simple so not to distract from the storyline’s homegrown humanistic focus.

In the Valley of Alah is not an extended diatribe against U.S. foreign policy, which is never even discussed. It is, however, a cunning, sometimes demoralizing, always beguiling look at the ugliness of what war leaves behind—not only on the battlefield, but at home.

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