Stop-Loss

Ryan Phillippe stars as Brandon King – a decorated war hero who bravely served America during dangerous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has returned home to Texas with his unit (and we know it is Texas because the characters point this out about 12,000 times during Stop-Loss’s first scenes in Texas), but everyone is having trouble.

Brandon’s best buddy, Steve (Channing Tatum), is falling out with his long time girlfriend, Michelle (Abbie Cornish), and needs to make a big decision about their future she might not agree with. Another buddy, Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), is drinking so much, he is becoming equally violent and despondent about the friends he lost in combat. However, even though Brandon is excited about his new life back home because he is scheduled to be released from the Army after serving his required tours of duty, the military is not ready to let him go.

When Brandon is told by the Army he will no longer be released due to a lack of manpower, and re-enlisted under the Stop-Loss policy, even though he has fulfilled his obligations, will he be forced to return to Iraq or will he compel the Army to live up to its end of the deal?

Stop-Loss loses sight of its most compelling story and gets weighed down by an anti-war theme, no matter how much you agree or disagree with that theme, and no matter how well the cast performs. With the Stop-Loss policy plot, co-writer Mark Richard and co-writer/director Kimberly Peirce have an extremely volatile and riveting conundrum every man, woman and child in the audience can understand and be angry about as Brandon becomes a man seeking what is right and fair in the face of a more powerful force wrongly compelling him with heavy handed threats to go along with a decision not in the spirit of his relationship with the Army. Yet, this story is brushed aside as Brandon starts to make an epic journey from Texas to Washington, DC, which focuses on him visiting various families and friends who have been affected by the war, and still suffer from what happened during their time in combat.

Peirce and Richard make an honorable and powerful effort to remind audience members what soldiers from the war zone face during combat and when they get home, but is that what the movie is supposed to be about when it has the title Stop-Loss? Is Stop-Loss a play on words and I don’t get it? We should never forget the impact war has on the military men and women who put their lives on the line, as well as their families and friends, but Peirce and Richard don’t want to make this the reason why Brandon takes the actions he does to fight his forcible re-enlistment.

By constantly reminding us in Brandon’s dialogue that he is refusing to go back because the Stop-Loss policy forcing him to remain in the Army is wrong, not because of what he feels about the war or any fear for what might greet him upon his return to Iraq, Peirce and Richard leave us to wonder why it is important to make the case for how horrible war can be. The suffering of those he knows and loves, which is a massive part of Stop-Loss, isn’t important to the main premise.

Ultimately, the cast and the situations their characters face are emotionally moving, and that might be enough to win over the audience. It is impossible not to feel something as we see these brave heroes struggle with the devastation and loss they face, especially in the capable hands of Tatum, Phillippe and Gordon-Levitt. I just don’t think this was the movie to see it in.

Stop-Loss is rated R for graphic violence and pervasive language.