Eye Candy #365 - "In the Valley of Elah"

In the Valley of Elah:  An odd film in the fact that while it is well-made and well-acted, I haven't the faintest idea what the "message" of the movie is about. A retired military officer (Tommy Lee Jones, in a great performance) launches an investigation into the disappearance of his enlisted son, who has just returned from Iraq. Along the way, he teams up with a local police officer (Charlize Theron, trying to look unattractive), and learns more than he wanted to about his son and how the war changed him. But the film isn't "Oh, the war in Iraq sucks" or "the military sucks" or "our servicemen and women are under a lot of stress". It's none of those things. The closest I can come up with is "Just when you think you know a guy..." The problem being (what keeps it from being truly great) - you have no opportunity to like, know, or even care about the missing soldier before our illusions about him are all shattered. It's the same problem I have with director Paul Haggis' wildly overrated "Crash" - there is no journey. The people are who they are at the beginning of the film as they are at the end.