Synopsis
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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Cast
- Tommy Lee JonesHank Deerfield
- Charlize TheronDetective Emily Sanders
- Susan SarandonJoan Deerfield
- Frances FisherEvie
- James FrancoSergeant Carnelli
- Jonathan TuckerMike Deerfield
- Jason PatricLieutenant Kirklander
- Josh BrolinChief Buchwald
- Wes ChathamCorporal Penning
- Jake McLaughlinSpecialist Gordon Bonner
Recommendations
- 100
Entertainment Weekly
It's the first Hollywood Iraq movie to remind me of a Vietnam film like Coming Home, and it does more than disturb. It scalds, moves, and heals. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
A deeply reflective, quietly powerful work that is as timely as it is moving. - 88
Chicago Tribune
Tommy Lee Jones is marvelous in the film. He has one scene in particular, a simple two-person encounter, that's as good as it gets in the realm of American screen acting. - 75
The A.V. Club
Where "Crash" relentlessly pushed every conflict to a fever pitch, Elah takes its cues from Tommy Lee Jones' low-simmering lead performance. - 70
New York Magazine (Vulture)
As a narrative, it’s clunky. As a whodunit, it’s third-rate. As the drama of a closed-off man’s awakening, it’s predictable. But Haggis has got hold of a fiercely urgent subject: the moral devastation of American soldiers serving in (and coming home from) Iraq. At its heart are deeper mysteries--and a tragedy that reaches far beyond anything onscreen. - 70
Newsweek
It's the casting of Iraq vet and non-professional Jake McLaughlin as Specialist Bonner, who fought alongside Deerfield's son in Iraq, that strikes a deeper emotional chord. His scenes with Jones, fraught with a complicated mix of bitterness, concern and guilt, are the best things in the movie. - 60
The New York Times
However you judge the movie’s politics, and whatever its flaws, there is something inarguable, something irreducibly honest and right, about Mr. Jones’s performance. - 50
Variety
Too self-serious to work as a straight-ahead whodunit and too lacking in imagination to realize its art-film aspirations.
