"In the Valley of Elah" ***1/2 (out of four): A fierce performance by Tommy Lee Jones as a father searching for his son, AWOL after returning from Iraq, anchors this flawed but important film from flawed but important writer-director Paul Haggis.
![inthevalleyofelah[1].jpg](http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/inthevalleyofelah%5B1%5D.jpg)
Americans have gotten lazy. And Paul Haggis wants us to know it. 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). With "In the Valley of Elah", he takes on the Iraq War, but not as you might expect. "Elah" isn't an accusatory flag-burner anymore than it's a rousing flag-waver. Instead, it's a deceptively simple film that plays like a whodunit but is more like a what-have-we-done.
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