ScreenWize

In August last year a group of Iraq war veterans in the USA started a campaign to abolish the practice of “stop-loss” a legal loophole in a soldier’s contract that forces him to continue serving in the military even though his contract has been completed. The stop-loss debate has been a bitter one, with new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates weighing in early after his appointment to try and discourage its use, without actually stopping the practice outright.

The movie Stop-Loss covers the debate from an intensely personal point of view, focusing on a small group of soldiers led by Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe). After a horrifyingly tense and bloody street fight in Iraq - which kills and injures some of his squad as well as some innocent civilians - the action follows King, his best buddy Sergeant Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) and Private Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as they return to their home town in Texas. All three soldiers demonstrate signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome but are looking forward to getting their lives back to normal. Shriver plans to marry his sweetheart Michelle (Abbie Cornish), Burgess spend some time with his wife, and King hang out on the family ranch. But when the stop-loss clause is invoked their lives start falling apart. As King says: “the box in my head where I put all the bad stuff is full up and overflowing.” Struggling to maintain his sanity, King decides to oppose the stop-loss order.

Director and co-writer Kimberly Pierce (who based the story on her brother’s first-hand experience with the army in the Middle East) opens the film with a riveting energy. It’s raw, handheld and powerful, designed to make us feel what it would be like in an urban combat zone and understand why a soldier wouldn’t want to go back. Along with the closing sequence of the film, this harrowing prologue is a quality highlight. But the journey in between is patchy, Pierce never really sure whether she’s making a coming home story, a road movie or a political point. The idea of the film is ultimately much stronger than its execution, with much of the plot overly contrived, and John Powell’s music heavy handed.

Nevertheless it’s an entertaining and worthy film illuminating why war is hard: on the soldiers themselves, and on their mothers, fathers, wives and girlfriends.

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Filed Under: Reviews by Simon