Hollywood learned in 2007 that American audiences aren't ready to plunk down their hard-earned money to watch a movie about a war they can see on the nightly news. While that reluctance might be understandable, particularly with regard to duds like Rendition or Redacted, it also meant that the exceptional In the Valley of Elah got lost in the shuffle.

Paul Haggis parlayed the success of his Oscar-winning Crash in this earnest, somber drama about the consequences of war -- and the writer-director actually reined in (for the most part, anyway) his penchant for heavyhandedness. Loosely based on a real-life case, In the Valley of Elah details the plight of a stoic ex-Army sergeant, Hank Deerfiield (Tommy Lee Jones), who seeks to make sense of the circumstances surrounding the AWOL disappearance of his son, Mike (Jonathan Tucker), who has just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.

Hank is a proud military man and patriot, a craggy-faced guy (it is Tommy Lee Jones, after all) who can't drive by an upside-down Old Glory waving from a flagpole without stopping his car and fixing the flag. Needless to say, Hank is alarmed by his son's mysterious disappearance. He kisses his wife (Susan Sarandon) goodbye, hops in his pickup truck and heads to the Army base to look into the matter himself. A former Army investigator, Hank is well-suited for such an investigation, but he enlists the help of a female police detective (Charlize Theron) who is eager to prove herself to her derisive male colleagues.

Haggis has weighty - if not exactly revelatory - things on his mind about the hell of war, but he has the good sense to dial down the preachiness and construct his film partly as a police procedural. Mike's fate becomes apparent incrementally, with Hank coming to some grim realizations about the current war and the military's negligence in counseling returning soldiers. As one of Mike's buddies tells Hank, "They shouldn't send heroes to places like Iraq."

That sort of dialogue can either send chills down your spine or induce eye-rolling. In Haggis' case, it might even cause both reactions simultaneously. Certainly, he suffers from some writerly flourishes. The aforementioned flag that Hank come across is an especially egregious Big Symbol (should a symbol really be a ... well, you know, a ... symbol?).

Even more nettlesome, Haggis has Hank palm a cell phone from his son's room at the base. The phone contains grainy videos that Mike shot in Iraq. The clips, images of horror and despair, are viewed by Hank in periodic dribbles as they are repaired and electronically mailed to him by a computer fix-it dude. While the contrivance certainly accentuates the drama - Hank's stateside investigation parallels his discovery of wartime atrocities - it is more than a bit convenient.

And yet such contrivances hardly dilute the film's solemn power. The cast is uniformly fine (and it bears mention, if only as trivia, that the film includes four actors also seen in No Country for Old Men: Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin, Barry Corbin and Kathy Lamkin).

Jones, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance here, is remarkable. His face, crevassed and worn and steeped in sadness, is astoundingly expressive. He anchors In the Valley of Elah (the title refers to the place where David battled Goliath) in palpable melancholy as a soldier and father comes to some harsh truths about his country and his son.

Presented in anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1, In the Valley of Elah boasts an amazing picture. Details are sharp and blacks are vivid, all of it a testament to the skills of ace cinematographer Roger Deakins (No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford).

The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix doesn't get much of a workout, but the sound is strong and clear, with no distortion or dropout. Audio tracks are also available in Spanish and French, with optional subtitles in Spanish, French and English for the hearing-impaired.

Slim pickins. The key extra is a two-part documentary, In the Valley of Elah: Documentary (42:59), that follows the making of the movie. Viewers can view either section ("After Iraq" and "Coming Home") separately or play both consecutively. The piece includes interviews with Haggis and the cast, several of whom are Iraq War veterans. There are also interview clips with Lanny Davis, the real-life figure who is the inspiration for the Hank Deerfield character.

The only other extra is a seven minute, 47-second additional scene in which Hank visits a young woman who Mike briefly dated. The meeting takes Hank into a hospital ward full of troops who have lost limbs in the war. It's powerful stuff, but its antiwar message is none too subtle.

The work of Paul Haggis can be polarizing, but the writer-director keeps the contrivances to a minimum (if not absent) in his Iraq War tome, In the Valley of Elah. Whatever shortcomings the film has, it packs an emotional wallop, particularly in a standout performance by Tommy Lee Jones.