Stop-Loss

Plot synopsis:
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) leads a squad stationed in Tikrit during the Iraq War. The film begins with footage from the tour of the squad, explaining they have 28 days before returning to the United States. While on duty at a checkpoint, the squad hears gunshots, after which a car speeds past filled with insurgents, one of whom fires an AK-47 at them. King's men jump into their Humvees and follow the insurgents into an alley. When the soldiers get out of their vehicles, the insurgents ambush them from rooftops.
As the firefight ensues, a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) is discharged, destroying one of the Humvees, killing two soldiers inside. Shortly after, another RPG is discharged, exploding an Iraqi vehicle. Squad member PFC Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is unfortunately near the vehicle when the RPG is discharged but another soldier, Pvt. Rico Rodriguez, dives on Burgess and saves him. This is at the expense of severely wounding Pvt. Rodriguez. Shortly after, fellow squad member Paul "Preacher" Colston, a close friend of Tommy, is shot in the neck and jaw in front of Tommy, and is killed instantly.
Later, when Staff Sergeant King enters a house to help injured long-time friend and squad member Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum), he discovers that he had accidentally killed several Iraqi civilians by throwing a grenade to kill an insurgent in a room, unaware of any civilians present in the area. Brandon is visibly shocked and the ambush ends with three soldiers killed.
Upon returning to their Texas hometown of Brazos, Brandon and Steve are decorated with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in a solemn ceremony. A U.S. Senator takes Brandon aside after the ceremony and offers to help Brandon in any way he can. That night, Steve shows the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. He gets drunk and digs a foxhole in his front yard, and strikes his fiancée Michelle (Abbie Cornish) in the face. When Brandon comes over to check on Steve, he is unable to get through to him. Tommy drives over drunk after his wife has kicked him out.
The next day, Brandon suggests that they all go to the "ranch", a small forest cabin located outside of town. The men pass the time by drinking and watching Tommy shoot his wedding gifts, after their friend Shorty reads the cards. Upon hearing the commotion, a hungover Steve awakens and shoots the cards to silence them and to show his skills in sniping. The next day, Brandon, Tommy and Steve report to their military base. When Brandon arrives expecting to be discharged, he is unexpectedly ordered back to active duty in Iraq, based on the military's controversial stop-loss policy, which required soldiers who had fulfilled their required tours of duty to return to the war. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL, becoming a deserter.
Michelle sympathizes with Brandon's refusal and offers to travel with him to Washington, D.C. to see the Senator who offered to assist Brandon earlier. During a multi-day drive to Washington, D.C., Brandon calls the Senator's office and is told that because he is now a fugitive, the Senator is not interested in seeing him. Brandon and Michelle also visit the family of Paul "Preacher" Colson, one of the three soldiers under Brandon's command killed in the alley ambush and encounter another AWOL soldier who recommends a lawyer to help arrange forged discharge documents so he could establish a new identity in Canada.
They also visit Rico Rodriguez, a soldier who was blinded, lost his right arm and leg, and sustained facial burns from saving Tommy from a rocket-propelled grenade, previously during the ambush in Iraq. After Michelle phones Steve to tell him of their exact location, he arrives in uniform to take Brandon back, and tells Michelle he has volunteered to return to Iraq. Brandon refuses to return and Michelle is furious with Steve for re-enlisting and ends their relationship. Brandon and Michelle finally reach New York City and meet with the lawyer, who gives Brandon forged papers and a passport which would allow him to flee to Canada in exchange for payment of $1000. Tommy, who is depressed after being discharged from the army, commits suicide, Brandon returns to visit Tommy's grave immediately after the funeral, only to end up in a dispute with Steve, ultimately turning into a physical battle ending with Brandon leaving the cemetery and Steve weeping.
Brandon, his mother and Michelle drive to the Mexican border, but Brandon ultimately decides that he does not want to abandon everything that he has ever known. He also tells his mother and Michelle that if he goes to Mexico he'll never really be able to leave the war behind him. The final scene depicts a busload of soldiers, including Brandon and Steve, returning to the war.

Tags: violence, murder, flashback

Review:
Well intentioned, this film tells the fictional story of Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe), an American soldier who, after successfully completing a heroic but horrendous tour of duty in Iraq, is notified that, despite his wishes, he must return to Iraq for yet more combat duty, a real-life contingency called "stop-loss".
It's a fate that neither King, nor real-life soldiers, want or deserve, but which the U.S. government justifies in lieu of a wartime draft.The film's first few minutes provide a montage of images and scenes showing King, and his men, in Iraq, as they bond together as protective buddies, and as they endure a violent urban ambush, during which several buddies get killed or seriously wounded.Back home in Texas, King and a couple of his men briefly celebrate their hero status.
lot's of good character development, ryan phillipe was great in this, he really knocked it out of the park with this one, he plays a staff seargeant who comes home a "hero" from Iraq, there is a parade , the whole town comes out , the senator is there and tells him anything you need son, come look me up.
Director Kimberly Peirce ("Boys Don't Cry") brings another powerfully charged film of such raw emotion that upon later reflection of the movie I felt like I had witnessed real events.Stop-Loss follows the fictional story of a soldier, Brandon King (Ryan Philippe), who has returned home after a tour in Iraq.
What follows is his road trip to fight the stop-loss as well as showing the devastating affects his fellow soldiers (Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) experience from the horrible war.
Its' acting, directing, and writing had such a feeling of authenticity, and combined with the fact that 81,000 of our brave soldiers have already been stop-lossed since Spetember 11,2001, this film feels like a true story.One thing that made this film succeed so well was it's director was a woman, and she was able to make a movie were you could feel and see the emotions these guys were feeling even as they would desperately try and mask them.The acting was extraordinary from the three main soldiers, most notably Ryan Philippe who is so gritty and real in his performance that he seems like he actually is a marine.
Channing Tatum gives a genuine performance, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt's is the most haunting of the trio as a soldier who fights his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with excessive amounts of booze and slowly slips into a deep hole of despair.This films is not a propaganda piece, it simply portrays something that is going on right now.
A "Deer Hunter" for the Iraq War. Just saw this film in an advance screening and once the tension and threat (very real) of the opening battle scenes were borne and past, the film grew on me, as the story became one of the soldiers at home: their war aftermath and their war that just won't quit or let them go.It occurred to me at one point this was quite like watching a "Deer Hunter" for the Iraq war.
There were certainly similar aspects, including aspects of the soldiers' relationships with each other and with others at home, and in terms of the casualties and injuries that continue to pile up well after leaving the battlefield.Stop Loss is perhaps a more political film than the "Deer Hunter" was, because of the timing of its release, while the issues of the war in the film are still very much on the boil in the USA.
Kimberly Peirce becomes one of the latest directors to try and only marginally succeed in making a compelling film about the Iraq conflict.Peirce takes on as her subject the military's stop-loss clause, essentially a back door draft by which the military can use fine print in recruits' contracts to prevent them from getting out once their time is up.
The film suffers from confusing editing, that doesn't always make it clear where characters are or how events are related to one another, and the writing at times is weak as well, with character motivations not coming across as clearly as they should.I don't know what it is about the Iraq conflict that makes it so hard for filmmakers to make good movies about it.
That said, perhaps the new design is necessary in order to get the film's important message across and heard.The message in this latest condemnation of the Iraq war effort is to bring attention to the "stop-loss" process.
While I appreciated Kimberly's message to us and reminds us of the pain these soldiers are going through, the story just remains in a biased plot of the constant battle against terrorism.Brandon has just come home from Iraq and is just enjoying his Texas life with his best friend, Steve, and his other friends.
He tries to head for the border, but realizes that maybe his team needs him.Stop Loss is a decent movie and it does have a very powerful message, while I always agree that a war movie is going to be very deep, I think this movie went a little further and could have been lighter, but that's just my opinion, I would have done the story a little different.
The movie has a strong stance against the war but it's certainly Pro-Soldier and the film bleeds with love for the young men putting their lives on the line each day.
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.
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.
It brings to light the whole stop-loss issue, which is not discussed enough in the media (it is, as the film says, just a back-door draft), and it gets the audience to think about what is happening to soldiers and to empathize with them.
I expected a lot more with talented young actors such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ryan Philippe, but Screenwriter/Director Kimberly Peirce does a hatchet job of portraying the ill effects of war on American youth.
I did not like the ending though, as I do not quite understand the psychological processes behind Ryan Philippe's character's decision.It is refreshing to view the life of a soldier from a different perspective, and I am pleasantly surprised by "Stop-Loss"..
The word "Stop-Loss" comes from US Military policy that concerning an involuntary extension of a service member's active duty service under the enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service date (thanks again, Wiki!).Imagine what if you have one real good material on your hands, but you don't have any idea how to tell it properly.
In the end, this is just one big frustrating motion picture that should have no, must have been excellence.Brandon (Ryan Phillippe), Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are three childhood friends and decorated war heroes who just got back from Iraq.
And it's a bad time indeed, since in the most troubled friend like Tommy is about going to lose his grip.From the sound of this, it should be an important film since this "Stop-Loss" policy obviously has a big loophole.
I don't know that it would be an improvement or not, but it would be really nice if they decide to share an equal screen time for those three young actors."Stop-Loss" is yet another anti-war drama like its predecessor (In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Redacted) that didn't really break into a major audience.
On the day he is to be honorably discharged from the service, decorated army Sergeant Brandon King is ordered to return to duty in Iraq, the latest victim of "stop-loss," a term for when soldiers who have fulfilled the terms of their military contract are denied permission to leave the service under penalty of court martial and imprisonment.
Brandon becomes a fugitive from justice, as much on the run from the memories that haunt him as from the authorities looking to bring him back.A searing expose on the "backdoor draft," "Stop-Loss" is an extraordinarily powerful drama that shows how men and women who have bravely served their country on the field of battle (along with the loved ones they have left behind) are being betrayed by the very government they fought to defend.
I appreciated it, because I had no idea stop loss even happened to people, I feel a lot more informed after seeing this movie and think everyone should see it.The cast was great Abbie Cornish (who is Australian) pulled off a great Texas accent, I really liked her character as well.
STOP-LOSS is a powerful film from the first frame to the last and delivers a story of our men (and women) who are serving in a war which many will not come home from.
Ryan Phillippe better be remembered at Oscar time, and Channing Tatum (wow, how you have STEPPED UP in this film!), to all the cast who brought home to the screen this film of what our troops have faced/face in Afghanistan and Iraq.Bravo, Kimberly Pierce for giving us this important film to show us what our troops today fear and contend with in war, and their return to the USA in what might be called COMING HOME meets THE DEER HUNTER, but shows you in STOP-LOSS, that "BOYS DON'T CRY", they just continue to serve in Iraq with bravery and valor..
They carefully paint King as a model soldier, this is definitely not about cowardice, but come the cop-out finale it's evident that the narrative suffers glaring inconsistencies and confused messaging.On the bonus side is the performances of the youthful cast, where some fluctuating accents aside, Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish are superb, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes a weakly written part crackle with pained emotion.
Suffice to say, the locals are over the moon to have their boys back; the post-tour celebratory party following an opening battle going along way to summarise the general outlook on the war as a whole: we're winning, we're taking heavy losses and a lot of Arabs local to the territories are dying for not an awful lot, but we're winning.The homecoming is sweet on the surface to these people, and on the surface alone; odd behavioural patterns beginning to plague that of what Striver does thus upsetting his fiancé Michelle (Cornish) and forcing King into getting involved, the foul smell of post-traumatic stress disorder filling the air and filling the grounds of Striver's front lawn when the digging of fox holes in the dead of night as well as the persistent speaking to himself plays out.
For King, problems rear up when he is a victim of that aforementioned stop-loss policy; a forcing of him back to the hotbeds of The Middle East against his wishes - an order devilishly delivered to him by a Lieutenant colonel played by Timothy Olyphant, whom always looks like he's having fun playing that seedy guy you're supposed to dislike but isn't necessarily the villain, and something that sees King, in his own words, "screwed by the system".King takes it upon himself to just leave; a fugitive out on the road with that of Michelle since, y'know, she's prettier and will make for better company than that of his parents.
s Stop-Loss a war movie—showing in grim detail the nature of the Iraqi war—, a buddy movie—Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) and his four buds who have managed to survive multiple tours of duty are returning to their Brazos, Texas, homes: "Mission Accomplished," so let's party and get on with our blessed lives—, or a cause movie—government say "Whoops, just kidding, it's crucifixion...
Philippe is miscast but manages the role well.The film is careful not to criticise outright the stop-loss clause that allows the military to send former soldiers back to the battlefield, which means that any message it tries to convey is confused to say the least, a flaw which is then exacerbated by the fact that, late on in the film, it suggests that Philippe's character isn't rebelling against the recall because it is inherently wrong but because he is suffering a crisis of confidence and guilt after leading his men into an ambush on their last mission..
The only part in the film that I don't know firsthand is the major part of Stop-Loss The fact that ryan Phillipe's character was an excellent soldier and sergeant and was supposed to go home but was sent back to Iraq.
After a tour of duty in Iraq that almost kills him a soldier returns home only to find that he's going to have to go back as part of the Stop Loss program of the military thats being used to keep numbers of troops up.Good, earnest, well acted tale is one of the better Iraq films to come out.
The politics of "Stop-Loss" is told from the soldier protagonist's point-of-view; whether you agree or not, it is a feeling widely held, and deserved to be told.Although the film is ostensibly about Iraq, and includes a convincing sequence in the war-torn country, the real surprise is how the filmmakers' portray the American landscape.
Brandon (Ryan Phillippe) blames himself for the deaths of his men, Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) drinks himself toward suicide, Rico (Victor Rasuk) attempts to see past his traumatically missing limbs, Isaac (Rob Brown) finds his entire world out of focus, and Steve (Channing Tatum) sees the military as his only point of reality to a life of success.
So the message boards are just chock full of people posting opines one way or the other about the Iraq WAr as well as this movie and its relationship to it.A tad unfortunate,really,since this film is more of a snapshot of the situation that is facing our enlisted men and women,and a very potent one at that.It's no mistake,then,that the central character of this moral/civic duty dilemma film is a good 'ol boy from Texas named Brandon KIng(Ryan Phillipe,somewhat of a step back from work such as Crash and Breach),a mid-rank officer in the Army who has bravely served his tour(tours?) of duty in Iraq and arrives back home to his large,red state on the belief that he's home to stay,and having lost enough friends and brothers in arms in battle,he's reach a level of battle fatigue that is largely justifiable.
On the run from his government, friends and fellow soldiers, lead character Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) spends much of the film coming to terms with how much of his life that he left behind many years ago has disintegrated while he has been away.
Also, with his actions after he was stop-lossed (saying f*** the President, going AWOL, etc...) he wouldn't have just went back to Iraq still a Staff Sergeant like he did at the end of the movie.
Stop-Loss, produced by MTV Films and directed by Kimberly Peirce brings us a new a movie part of a small genre of military films that have popped up, not to glorify the horrors of war but to look at a different aspect of the soldier's psyche.
"Boys Don't Cry" director Kimberley Peirce's new anti-war movie "Stop-Loss" (**1/2 out of ****) draws its title from an unfair Pentagon policy that obliges troops to perform back-to-back tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This is my only real criticism of the entire film and I was glad when things moved back stateside so we could get on with telling the story without letting technique dominate content.As powerful as the performances are of the young men who play soldiers in this movie, the camera sure does love Abbie Cornish.
I have two sons that have both been to Iraq and they don't know anyone that has had a stop-loss or come back so messed up like everyone of the guys in this movie.
Ryan Phillippe stars as Brandon King, a decorated war hero who, upon returning home from his final tour of duty in Iraq, is surprised to discover that he's just been stop-loss.
A group of Texan men led by Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) have completed their tour of duty in Iraq and are given a hero's welcome in their hometown, as they should.When Brandon goes to turn in his army stuff, he's instructed that he's been re-deployed, thanks to a clause known as "stop-loss" which allows the government to call back troops who've finished their tour of duty.Brandon is obviously upset about this, and tries to fight it by going AWOL with his best friend Steve's (Channing Tatum) fiancé (Abbie Cornish) as they embark on a trip to Washington D.C. to talk to the Senator who Brandon feels will help him in his cause.As he's on the road, things are home deteriorate.
It begins with soldiers from Iraq who are coming home, But for three good friends, Brandon(Ryan Phillippe), Steve(Channing Tatum), and Tommy(Joesph Gordon Levitt) all in there own way, are emotionally destroyed from the war.
Cornish gives us a sexy woman who is tough and not about to be done in by fate and the idiotic actions of the men in her life.Needless-to-say, this film is a denunciation of the war and the stop-loss policy, but it is also a tribute to the young soldiers who go off to Iraq thinking that they are doing something good for their country.