London-born Paul Haggis, writer of recent hits Million Dollar Baby, Crash, Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima has headed down a braver and more controversial road with his anti-US Iraq war film In the Valley of Elah which he wrote, directed and produced. The film has received critical acclaim, but flopped at the US box office - that though was perhaps only because it dared to take a critical look at the effect of the Iraq war on US soldiers returning from combat.

Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men) plays Hank Deerfield, a retired Military Policeman who has to return to his police skills when his son Mike (Jonathan Tucker) goes AWOL on the first weekend after a return from duty in Iraq.

Hank is set in his ways, he sticks to a routine, his shoes are polished, he wears a cleanly ironed shirt everyday, he's painfully shy but has exacting standards. He wants to be proud of his army son, but Mike going missing causes his mother Joan (Sarandon) to fret and father Hank is not happy either.

Unable to sit still and wait for news, Hank decides to drive to the US army base and start to make enquiries himself. At this point, there are distinct echoes of Costa-Gavras's excellent film Missing where Jack Lemmon played an equally moving role as another father going on a painstaking search for a missing sibling and having to ask questions in an environment in which he was not accustomed. The Army base is closer to Hank's world, but it's still one he's not inhabited for some years and frustratingly when he asks another retired police friend for help, all the people they knew, have long since left.

Hank finds himself clutching at straws and desperately pleads for help from busy police detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron). Sanders is going to become crucial to Hank's search for his lost son and the path he takes to find out what happened is going to take himself down a road he may end up regretting taking.

In The Valley of Elah is a well-made film that nicely builds towards its denouement. The performances are strong, particularly from Lee Jones and Theron.

It seems odd, given that Hank learns that his son was taking drugs at the base, that he doesn't go in search of local dealers as a line of enquiry and there is footage taken from Mike's mobile that is gradually deciphered, where it is not always easy to see what it is you are meant to find significant, but that apart, this is a decent thriller that isn't afraid to suggest that being in the US Army can mess with your head. It's only a pity that such a salient line appears not to have gone down well with the American public, but as I say don't let that put you off going to see this intelligent and perceptive film.