Stop Loss

The armed forces Stop Loss policy has been a source of controversy since the first Persian Gulf War. It is also the topic of Kimberly Peirce’s sophomore effort “Stop-Loss.” It comes almost nine years after “Boys Don’t Cry” a film that put Peirce and many of the film’s actors on the map.

In the beginning, the movie seems to accurately portray life as a soldier in Iraq. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Philippe) and his men are manning a checkpoint, where boredom alternates with fear, and danger waits in each approaching vehicle.

His troops consist of the testosterone charged Channing Tatum (“Coach Carter”), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“3rd Rock From the Sun) in his first appearance with facial hair.
After a brief firefight, the movie fast forwards to a welcome home parade, in Sgt. King’s hometown, a cliché small Texas town. The returning soldiers are glad to be home, but carry the memories of the horror they have witnessed.

As the welcome home party begins, “Stop-Loss” seems to be emerging as a gritty portrait of the reality faced by veterans when they come home. Characters get drunk and reveal the flaws that will eventually undo them. With every wild night, comes the inevitable hangover the next morning. The remaining 78 minutes is the hangover.

When the phrase “You’ve been stop-lost” is uttered, the movie begins its downward spiral. Philippe pulls a Richard Kimble, his one-armed man being a local senator who will help him avoid jail. Soon he is off on some cross-country journey where the movie completely loses itself. It’s as if the writers were unclear on what to do with Philippe’s screen time, so they cast him into various heroic molds, none of them quite sticking.

The film doesn’t exactly glorify going AWOL, but it comes pretty close to it. Especially since the movie will not let the audience like Tatum’s character, despite (and because of) the fact that he is the only one that considers making the Army part of his future. When he decides to re-enlist, he becomes the closest thing to a bad guy that exists in the film.

Its place in the political spectrum can be gleaned from the fact that Philippe utters the phrase “f@%! the President” and later quotes Sen. John Kerry, calling stop-loss a “backdoor draft.”
The characters follow the story arc of a Shakespearean tragedy, with each character undone by his flaws.

But instead of the Bard’s immortal prose, there are laughable Texas accents and an overabundance of the word ‘ain’t.’ Instead of admirable but flawed characters, there are superficial caricatures of real people.

“Stop-Loss” is blunt enough in its presentation that the audience knows what it’s supposed to feel, but it doesn’t work hard enough to make a deeper impression. It does an admirable job of trying to tackle the complexity of the issue. Ninety-eight minutes is a short amount of time to fit an analysis and verdict on the stop loss policy with deep and dynamic characters. There simply isn’t enough time to create anything more than a passing glance at who these people are.


Rating - $4.00