maybe a reason some people be praise the actor performance highly but not recommend to see the movie be because the actual experience of watch in the valley of elah be just too unsettling and like a mirror of our actual experience in iraq ( whatever your political view may be ) . notice that although the movie crime story be solve by the end and it turn out not to involve any conspiracy and the exact reverse of what the story have lead u to anticipate ( we misread the army official behavior and assume the military must be try to cover up something ) . be pull into the whodunit but we do not get the satisfying twist that crime story like this usually give u . the young soldier wasn not kill while heroically try to uncover a dark secret . instead he die senselessly and for nothing . but isn not this experience and this let down while watch the movie and a lot like our real life experience of the past 4 year . we want to believe iraq be somehow link to the terrible crime inflict on u and but our early hop for retribution have instead come up against a completely different reality represent no weapon of mass destruction and and a lengthening war no one want . the david of our hope march into iraq and but the lengthening shadow of goliath still stand before u . terrific movie . work on so many level at once and never preachy and never obvious and completely real . i do not leave the theater feeling great but i felt fully engage and and i felt like it matter again to be an american . the people in this movie be and almost every single one and so likable ( at least sooner or later they be ) and and the place be so recognizably american in way i care about that the movie be an affirmation . except and of course and the people in this movie like all of u be trap in a war with awful unforeseen consequence and hit where we live and even if the bomb do not . so the would be affirmation lead only to sad disappointment and remorse and the more heartfelt for it real life applicability . in the movie it pretty clear that mike deerfield be destroy exactly because he start out a such a good and decent young man . besides be brave ( get out of the humvee to take the photo ) and he have a heart and a conscience and and therefore couldn not rationalize away his part in kill the iraqi boy and no matter how unintended . in one sense and mike try to be like a david who face the monster goliath of war . but that the conventional view . the much more disturb one be that mike downfall be root in the fact that he himself have become a monster and no matter how unintended . and and sadly and isn not mike really a stand in for u . in the valley of elah the role have be reverse and america have become the bad guy in some crazy unintended way . notice that america be clearly the goliath in power compare to a bunch of rag tag iraqi and no matter how murderous some of their intent . yet we be fell by a small iraqi boy fearless stand ( why do not he just run out of the road . ) and the boy imply recrimination shoot for goliath heart instead of his head no less deadly for that . a fine and decent people be bring low and their best motif twist around and pervert until they find themselves inflict barbarity they never think be possible and just like the father in the movie who can not believe until the end that his son comrade could be culpable . that why the father hang the u flag up side down and make the universal distress call represent something go seriously wrong and we need any help we can find to get out of our valley of elah . the powerful thing about this movie be that we be propel seamlessly if uncomfortably back and forth across these two understanding of who be david and who be goliath . the reverberation continue for a long time .