On November 1, 2004, Hank Deerfield – a gravel trucker and retired military police sergeant living in Monroe, Tennessee with his wife Joan – is notified that his son Mike, a soldier recently returned from Iraq, has gone missing.

Hank drives to Mike’s base in New Mexico to look for him; leaving home, he helps a school custodian raise the American flag correctly.

Watching videos recovered from the phone, he attempts to report Mike’s disappearance to police detective Emily Sanders, after she finished talking to a woman whose dog has been murdered, regrettably unable to help out, and reaches out to a friend formerly at Army CID, without success.

Fort Rudd claims jurisdiction, believing that a pipe found under Mike’s mattress and the recent arrest of other soldiers for smuggling heroin indicate his murder was drug-related.

Belittled by her male colleagues, Sanders convinces the local sheriff to pursue the investigation, and Mike’s squadmate SPC Gordon Bonner reaches out to Hank.

Hank and the police determine that another member of Mike’s squad, PVT Robert Ortiz, is AWOL, with a history of drug smuggling and a blue car.

Penning has already come forward and received a plea deal, but at Sanders’ insistence, she and Hank hear his confession in person: he admits to stabbing Mike after a seemingly insignificant quarrel.

Although the film story is fictional, with the names and locations changed, it is based on the facts of the murder case of Richard T. Davis of Baker Company, 1-15 IN.

"[4] In 2004, freelance journalist Mark Boal wrote an article about Richard Davis's murder, entitled "Death and Dishonor," published in Playboy.

It opened in a somewhat limited release in the United States on September 14, 2007, eventually grossing $6.7 million domestically, making it a box office disappointment.

The site's consensus reads: "Though some of Paul Haggis's themes are heavy-handed, In the Valley of Elah is otherwise an engrossing murder mystery and antiwar statement, featuring a mesmerizing performance from Tommy Lee Jones".

In his review, Corliss praised the film as an improvement on Paul Haggis's Oscar-winning Crash, calling it "strong in the sleuthing, sobering in its political conclusions."

"[15] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times said that "the characters in this sombre film have the glum look of individuals delivering a Very Important Message to the world.