Stop-Loss
isn’t based on a true story but, even with its highly
coincidence-based plot, it could likely pass for a movie that
was. The film follows fictional protagonist Brandon King (Ryan
Phillippe), a sergeant in the Army who comes home from Iraq
weathered and torn by what he’s seen in battle, while still
undoubtedly proud of his service. When expected to give a speech
promoting recruitment at his Texas homecoming, he finds himself
without a word to say onstage, simply digressing about the
beauty of the sight of a truck full of onions on his ride home.
Brandon has seen many of his fellow men die in battle, and
others injured including dear friend Rico (Victor Rasuk), who is
recovering in a German hospital.
Brandon and
friends Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
party away on their first night home. For Brandon, the time he
spends is especially sweet because he knows that the next day,
he’ll be finished with his contracted time in the military. Only
problem is: when the time comes to sign the papers to get out,
he is told that he is shipping back to Iraq. In a second, he
becomes a victim of a practice known as stop-loss, an executive
order to retain soldiers for an understaffed military by
involuntarily extending their contracts. Mad as hell, Brandon
goes AWOL and travels alongside Steve’s sympathetic fiancée,
Michelle (Abbie Cornish), in search of the help of a Washington
Senator who awarded him with a Purple Heart. He’s too angry, of
course, to realize that any government-representative won’t even
think to help him given his fugitive-status.
The movie is
inspired and inept in turns. It excels when it simply deals with
the human side of war. I don’t know what it feels like to be in
the military, but Stop-Loss seems to me to be the most
realistic modern depiction of the experience that audiences have
yet seen. This, alone, separates the movie from the majority of
Iraq-themed pictures (In the Valley of Elah being the
worst of them), which represent American Troops as monsters—not
heroes—for the sake of advancing antiwar political statements.
The characters here are depicted as powerful, knowledgeable
servicemen in an opening guerilla-war sequence, just as they
should be. When they come home, Stop-Loss displays an
uncannily human sympathy toward their plights in readjusting to
normal life. Aiding this sense of authenticity are the
tremendous, painstaking performances of Ryan Philippe, Channing
Tatum, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, all of whom deliver the best
work of their careers here. Despite its contrivance-ridden
central plot, Stop-Loss is deeply respectful towards our
men in uniform – one thing that we can all be thankful for.
Unfortunately,
co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce may have thought she was
directing a picture like Lions for Lambs or the
aforementioned In the Valley of Elah when helming
Stop-Loss. Disrupting the emotional, authentic flow of the
material are Peirce’s constant attempts to politicize it,
forcing her characters to snidely reference “the President” on
numerous occasions. While I’m glad that she didn’t blame the
soldiers for whatever shortcomings the military has faced in
Iraq, she also understands next-to-nothing about warfare on a
governmental level. First and foremost, it’s a stretch to say
that George W. Bush is entirely to blame for the practice of
stop-loss. Yes, he has authorized several thousand
stop-losses—the movie cites the number of 81,000—but it’s hard
to claim that these weren’t necessary to fuel the War. Would it
kill Peirce’s liberal ego to mention the fact that the Clinton
Administration was responsible for a massive decrease in
troop-recruitment and military-funding, a potential trigger of
today’s abundant amount of stop-losses? (Not to mention, Clinton
authorized the practice himself, too.)
In truth,
Peirce shouldn’t have injected politics into Stop-Loss at
all. Her story has a profound emotional effect; it speaks for
itself. Whatever political ideas viewers would’ve wanted to take
from the material should’ve been their own. Her partisan
attempts to attack the current administration’s policies only
undermine Stop-Loss’ richly-defined characters,
exploiting the very sense of realism that she works so hard to
achieve throughout the duration. Still, I must admit, despite
Peirce’s undercooked, half-assed statement-making, I felt
unconditional sympathy and admiration for the men in her movie.
For the characters to ultimately overpower any fancy Hollywood
politicking shows just how soundly crafted they were. Capped off
by a tremendous finish that will surprise viewers and leave them
thinking as the credits roll (despite some heavy-handed
imagery), Stop-Loss, if nothing else, marks a step in the
right direction for the Hollywood-fueled Iraq picture.
-Danny Baldwin,
Bucket Reviews
Review Published
on: 3.26.2008
Screened on:
3.25.2008 at the AMC Burbank 16 in Burbank, CA.
Stop-Loss is rated R and runs 112
minutes.
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