Almost 10 years after bursting onto the feature film scene with BOYS DON'T CRY, Kimberly Peirce returns with an Iraq War drama that survives some plot contrivances with very well observed complex characters. As the title suggests, the film deals with the military policy of stop-loss, where soldiers can be reassigned to duty after their term of service is up. Nearly 81,000 Iraq War soldiers have been stop-lossed, which is viewed by some as a backdoor draft that pushes our stretched military too far.
Personalizing this idea, we meet a group of soldiers in Iraq. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the strong leader of the men, who is determined to do his duty to the best of his ability. Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum, STEP UP) is a tough soldier with a pretty girl named Michelle (Abbie Cornish, CANDY) back home. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, BRICK) is a troubled soldier who drowns his sorrow in liquor. Rico Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS) is a trash-talking private who finds the positive in every situation. After an ambush in Iraq that kills some of their squad and severely injures others, the men get a break back home in Texas. Brandon and Steve have finished their tours and look forward to starting their civilian life, however, the horrors of war have made the transition difficult. Then Brandon is stop-lossed. He strongly objects and ends up AWOL, fleeing to Washington D.C. to plead his case to a senator he knows.
The chief hindrance to the film's success is its tidy plot. Scenes play out too conveniently and the end ties up too nicely. This saps some of the potential power from the drama, but instead of torpedoing the whole production it just amounts to some lost opportunities. What really drives this story is the characterizations. Brandon, played powerfully by Phillippe, has conflicting feelings, which are twisted by the results of war. The war has played a toll on his psyche and he has honorably done his duty, but is angered by a policy that virtually makes him a slave to the military. At first, he seems the most stable of the returning men, but the stop-loss action brings his anger to a boil. On his way to D.C., he stops to talk to the family of one of his fallen men who was stop-lossed and to see one of his wounded men in the hospital. These scenes highlight the multi-layered guilt that he has for what happened in Iraq. Making his internal struggle worse is the knowledge that his men count on him, especially his best friend Steve.
Peirce and Mark Richard's screenplay see these characters as they are with warts and all. They're not PC and their hostility toward Iraqis is not hidden. They went into the military with idealistic notions and have left bitter and disgruntled. Each has different reasons for staying or leaving, which are warped versions of their original good intentions. Michelle's actions show her feelings for war clearly. In the end, Brandon is left with few options, pitted between choices that where not of his own making.
While the film traverses ground that other war films have traveled before, STOP-LOSS feels like a film for this generation. This isn't the generation of flower power, but one of gangster rap and death metal. It's not a military comprised of drafted, reluctant soldiers, but one of true believers. The Vietnam War shook societal changes that were already happening in America. The draft made people who wouldn't have paid attention stand up and shout. The Iraq War allows those people to stand at a distance and let "those flag-waving people" fight the war. As the Vietnam draft did for the general public, this film argues that stop-loss is doing the same to the flag-wavers, shaking their faith.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
