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STOP-LOSS Send This Review to a Friend
Apart from its engrossing exposé of the protracted fiasco of our involvement in Iraq, “Stop-Loss,” the bold new film directed by Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) and co-written by her and Mark Richard, makes clear that the physical and emotional toll among those who have fought there will haunt the survivors and plague society for years to come. The tragedy does not end with the 4,000 American soldiers who died, the further deaths sure to come and the more than 20,000 troops wounded. It goes on with a wicked, physically and emotionally upsetting aftermath. The story-line in the film demonstrates that you can’t send people over to be killers in a fruitless, brutal situation and then expect them to settle down and nurse their psychological and physical wounds in a state of back to normalcy.
The film’s title refers to the situation in which soldiers who have served their required tours of duty and are due for release are forced to go back to Iraq for more combat as a result of the inadequacy of forces there. In a postscript the film informs us that 81,000 soldiers have been subjected to stop-loss. In this drama, the focus is particularly on one soldier, Brandon King, a Texan who returns as a war hero, then flips out when he is told he must go back to fight again. Ryan Phillippe plays the character with utter conviction, and he has the perfect looks and demeanor to indicate the innocent, honest guy who expects his enlistment agreement to be honored. Reminded that the President is the commander-in-chief and his order trumps any ideas of resistance, King bursts out with what previously would have been uncharacteristic of him, “F—k the President.”
In the structure of “Stop-Loss” we are introduced at the outset to the grim, lethal experiences of King and his men. It is the ground work for the nightmarish anguish King carries with him and his feelings of guilt for having led his men into what turned out to be an ambush that cost lives. Traumatic tensions are evident in other returnees with nerves on edge and ready to explode. There is also a heartbreaking scene in which King visits one of his buddies lying in a hospital with severe burns on his face, part of an arm missing and a leg gone too but trying to keep up his spirits. The moment is so emotionally effective that one can extrapolate from it a vision of the thousands like him who face a grim future.
The filmmakers perhaps try to crowd too much into the story, but the basic drama gains momentum as King goes AWOL and decides to head for Washington to ask help from the Senator whom he met at his hero’s welcome home and who had promised him an open door if he ever needed anything. When that hope is dashed, King is faced with a dilemma—should be flee the country through an established underground of deserters and forever be an outcast, or should he succumb and be returned to Iraq?
In the process King is on the lam with help from Michele, the girlfriend of his buddy Steve (Channing Tatum), and Michele, convincingly portrayed by Abbie Cornish, is herself disillusioned at the prospect of becoming an army wife, given Steve’s decision to go back to Iraq. As she drives King cross country, the film isn’t cheapened by turning their relationship into an affair. The bond remains one of friendship and understanding, and we are made aware of a woman’s take on the desperate situation.
“Stop-Loss,” while not a stylish film that achieves cinematic greatness, is a sturdy, hands-on drama that reaches into the depths of the Iraq debacle and measures its effect on individuals, the betrayal by their government and the ongoing human toll. Peirce has come through with what deserves to stand one of the important, riveting and principled films of 2008. A Paramount Pictures and MTV Films release.
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