Read The Fine Print In Your Enlistment Contract

Rating: 7/10 (7 April 2008)

As it is in the Iraq War as it has been since wars started once mankind figured out how to use hunting tools as weapons, the nature of the soldier is to fight. The military man doesn't question policy or the reasons why he's in a war, he just does the best he can and try to survive.
Which is what Sergeant Ryan Phillippe, hometown hero from Brazos, Texas who's done his tour of duty and is given the horrible piece of news that he's been ordered for another tour of duty in Iraq. They call it Stop-Loss hence the title of the film.
Phillippe's last action in Iraq involved a nasty urban fire fight where some good friends were killed. He just wants to go back to civilian life and kick back. But the army wants his combat experience.
What to do. Probably if Phillippe came from some liberal blue state he'd find a lot more sympathy in his course of action. But he comes from that reddest of red states, Texas. It's a whole different mindset there and his very upbringing is telling him he's got to shoulder the burden of arms again.
Stop-Loss is a good film from director/writer Kimberly Peirce who brought us Boys Don't Cry. Stop-Loss is not as powerful as Boys Don't Cry still it sends a powerful if conflicted message for the young people today who might just contemplate a military enlistment.
Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are also in the film as Phillippe's fellow soldiers who have differing attitudes towards the army and the Iraq War. Hard to know what is right in a situation like this. Where you're brought up and by who might be the reason you take one course of action as opposed to another.
For what Phillippe does and the rest do, you have to go see Stop-Loss. And this review is dedicated to all of the men and women in arms for the United States of America who carry out our policy and put their bodies and lives on the line for us. If our leaders err and they do many times, no blame should attach to them. They are the most precious resource of the United States of America.