Paul Haggis' In The Valley of Elah is based on actual events, and explores themes including the Iraq war, abuse of prisoners, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following active combat and portrays a father's hunt for his son's killers.
Hank Deerfield (Tommy Lee Jones) is a retired army military police sergeant with experience investigating crimes. He learns that his son Mike has returned to America and has gone AWOL. Hank leaves, hoping to find his son.
Though hurrying to the army base, Hank takes the time to stop at the local school, where the United States Flag has mistakenly been hung upside down. Hank explains that the American standard hanging upside down is a sign of great distress, according to the United States Flag Code. He and the caretaker fix the flag before he continues on his way.
When he reaches the base, he meets with army personnel. He meets people who knew Mike but is unable to find any useful information at first.
He steals Mike's phone from his room and has it analyzed by a computer expert who tries to recover some damaged video clips from the phone. He pays the man $100 and awaits his reply by e-mail.
Most of his early investigations are fruitless, and he approaches the local police. He sees Detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) dismiss a woman's concerns after her recently-returned husband (a veteran of the war) drowned their dog in the bathtub, in front of their son. She worries about how disturbed he may be, but Sanders tells her there is nothing she can do regarding the death of the dog, and sends the woman away, doing nothing to allay the wife's concerns. Later in the film Sanders is called to the woman's house; her husband has drowned her in the bathtub while their son was at his grandmother's house.
Hank finds little help from Det. Sanders and heads to a diner where he meets an old friend from Army CID who he has not seen in over fifteen years. After asking about his oldest son, Hank informs the him that he died serving in the 82nd Airborne while on maneuvers in a helicopter crash ten years ago; he does not really discuss Mike. Hank arrives to his motel room to find some imperfect video from Mike's phone.
Meanwhile, the police are seen investigating a crime scene of a dismembered and burnt body. The police are very pleased to pass the investigation off to the military because the murder seemingly happened on land owned by the military.
Hank Deerfield is notified at his hotel room that the remains of his son Mike have been found. The officer is reluctant to offer more information but at Deerfield's insistence, he takes him to see his son's burnt and virtually unrecognizable remains (the officer mentions they were only able to identify Mike Deerfield from partial fingerprints).
Det. Sanders is reluctant to pass the crime off to the military, but is left with little choice. In the morgue, Hank is shown his son's remains and then asked if Mike was into drugs because they suspect he may have been murdered by a gang of Mexicans involved in smuggling heroin in from the middle east. A pipe was found under Mike's mattress.
Due to Hank's determination, Detective Sanders is forced to take Hank to the crime scene. He is able to find that the location of the killing occurred outside of military property by locating markings on the ground from where the body was dragged. Also, Detective Sanders mentioned a green car witnesses saw at the crime scene, but Hank points out that the car was most likely blue, as it would just appear green from a under the yellow street lamps.
Hank notifies his wife, Joan, of Mike's death. His wife is devastated and angry at losing two sons in the military. She tells Hank that he left Mike with little choice and that the young man would not have felt at all like a man if he didn't join the army.
After putting her son to bed, Det. Sanders looks over grisly crime scene photos while Hank examines video from Mike's phone; the video is still very fragmented. At work, Det. Sanders is given bad assignments mocking her expertise and the men in the force expect she has slept her way into her job. Whether or not she slept with him, she does have some pull with the chief who allows her to pursue the case, even though it looks badly on him having so many unsolved murders.
Hank and Det. Sanders continue to work together solving the case, and keep finding dead ends and twists and turns along the way. At first, they suspect Private Robert Ortiez, a Mexican-American soldier who may be involved in drugs. As Hank follows the police to his residence and watches them fail to apprehend him efficiently, Hank chases him down in the street, hits him with the open door of his truck and brutally assaults him, even hitting Det. Sanders in the process. Charges are not filed.
In interviewing the men that Mike was with that night, they find inconsistencies including the men going to a chicken restaurant and ordering only enough for three while there were four people. Signature discrepancies on credit slips etcetera, proved that the men were not telling the true story. After one of the men out with Mike committed suicide, it is interpreted by the military as the closest they will get to a confession. Hank and Emily are not satisfied.
The full story of the night is as follows: Mike and the men had been kicked out of a strip club after Mike became agitated and caused a disturbance. Afterwards, the men's fighting escalated, and as a by-product of Post Traumatic Stress, one of his fellow soldiers stabbed him over forty times. Another had the idea of dismembering and burning the body. Hungry, the men then went to eat.
Hank Deerfield apologized to the man he had beaten when he found that Ortiez was not responsible, and upon speaking to him found that Mike had struck a child with his Humvee in Iraq due to a standing order to keep driving if something gets in their way. This caused psychological problem for Mike who had called his father after the incident but neglected to give details. Hank thought his son was experiencing typical emotions associated with a tour of duty.
When the crime is finally solved, and the men from Mike's squadron are revealed as his killers, Hank heads home to find a flag his son sent in the mail with a picture of it flying with his squad in Iraq. Hank takes the flag to the school, where he flies it upside down; a sign that everything is not all right and the country is in distress. He duct tapes the ropes of the flag staff and instructs the school's custodian to leave it like that, even at night.
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