Review of In the Valley of Elah

The film shows that the present wars in the Middle East makes US soldiers blur moral values. When on their return, nothing is done to help them refocus those values, their life-is-cheap attitude continues. It's not surprising that mainstream film critics would rather not know about this troubling situation. The main character, a Vietnam vet, realizes the country is in deep moral trouble and in need of help. That's why he raises the flag wrong side up. Haggis makes this hard message more palatable by, at the very end, suggesting that the soldier murdered by his buddies had serious qualms about what went on in the war. But one of the murderers,in a chilling line, sees the dead man as no better than himself. He says something like: If I were down on the ground, he would have stabbed me.