This is one of those films that is tough to watch, but like the car wreck on the freeway, we can't take our eyes off it. Tommy Lee Jones plays the Vietnam veteran father of a son, who, in the opening scenes we learn, is missing from his home base after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. When a cursory look at all of the possibilities turns up nothing Tommy Lee, the former MP goes into Investigator mode with avengence.
The skill and determination that he attacks this situation is almost irritating as time after time he points out things to the authorities that they have missed. And there is little doubt that they have missed these details because they are lazy, incompetent or trying to cover up the truth.
As the movie progresses we learn about the nature of this man. A man who as he embarks on his quest stops to right a flag on the school flag pole that was mistakenly hauled up up side down by a immigrant janitor. A man who has no problem going into a strip club to find his son, but gives the impression that he doesn't see the naked women, because they offer no clue as to his son's where abouts. We see him pulling the crease into his pants on the motel bureau. We witness his embarrassment by the thought of a women see him only in a tee shirt as he does his laundry in a Laundromat as he runs to the dryer and pulls out a half dry shirt and puts it on.
However he is not afraid to go where he has to go to find the truth and like the distorted video images from his son's cell phone, the longer he looks the messier it gets. The twists and turns in this plot scoop up facts in evidence that casts a huge net of responsibility for the eventual solution to this one incident. But Paul Haggis the writer director of this film has a lot more to say than "who done it". Skilfully using the talents of Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon, to name the top billing actors, Haggis has given us a glimpse into the part of War the Pentagon, the president and others intent on waging war do not want us to see and that is what happens to the poor soldier that has to fight these wars of liberation.
The ending of this film can be interpreted in a number of ways, because control of the events was in the hands of a number of people. This film is about what we do to our military people by putting them in harms way. And how, because of our military mythology, what they experience is not acknowledged or dealt with in any meaning full way. And yet, like the cop on the corner we are more than ready to take for granted the tranquil peace their presence affords and to blame them for their failure when things go wrong
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