Paul Haggis sure loves his dog metaphors. A key exchange in his script for Million Dollar Baby relates to a dying pooch, and now here we have Charlize Theron’s New Mexico detective Emily Sanders presented with a case of domestic canicide.

Appropriately, the rapidly dismissed incident comes back to bite her in the bum. But before that happens, the crime-solving single mum has to deal with perennial bloodhound Tommy Lee Jones nipping at her heels.

Ever since The Fugitive - from Double Jeopardy, The Hunted and The Missing to No Country For Old Men - Tommy Lee has spent his acting days either sniffing people out or hunting them down.

So who better to play Hank Deerfield, the methodical, impassive and, yes, dogged former military policeman hell-bent on finding out who killed his son Mike, mere days after his return from a harrowing tour of Iraq?

Initially, Mike is reported as AWOL. His platoon mates at Fort Rudd can’t help Hank and, since it’s a military matter, nor can Detective Sanders. Then Mike’s body is found near the base - stabbed, torched and dismembered.

While the army and regular police argue over jurisdiction, Hank begins his own investigation. This is no botched drug deal and nothing he hears at Fort Rudd rings true. Gradually, he needles Sanders into his way of thinking.

Based on a factual article from Playboy, the film is ultimately concerned with the psychological aftershocks of war.

To extend Haggis’ favourite metaphor further, it highlights the plight of young men trained to be attack dogs, unleashed overseas, then sent back to their kennels to fight amongst themselves.

But it works best as a crime procedural.

The temptation with this kind of story is to muddy the waters with copious flashbacks. Haggis wisely employs them sparingly, providing evidence of what happened in Iraq through photographs and infuriatingly corrupted video files taken from Mike’s phone.

Theron is a good mismatch for the taciturn Jones, though Sanders is the less consistent character. After arguing with her sexist colleagues that she earned her job through hard work, not by sleeping with the boss, she then wins their respect by passing off Hank’s crime-scene observations as her own.

Sarandon adds emotional weight as the wife and mother of servicemen who cannot reconcile the loss of two sons through blind patriotism.

But she is afforded little more screen time than Jason Patric’s military smoke-blower and cameo stars James Franco and Josh Brolin.

The title (another metaphor) is explained through Hank in a bedtime story to Sanders’ young son; Elah being the site of David’s victory over Goliath.

But this and other ‘humanising’ scenes (Frances Fisher’s distractingly topless barmaid, for example) don’t always convince, and the final act labours to a reveal which, to many viewers, will feel anti-climactic.

Haggis may have intended it thus. Having drained his film of colour and humour, its carefully controlled intensity – and Jones’ fine performance - would have been undone by a whiz-bang ending.

As it is, the shocking sadness of the conclusion gives greater pause for thought.

Elliott Noble