"Stop-Loss" Review - Written by TonyD

“Stop-Loss”
2008
*** out of ****
Director: Kimberly Pierce
Cast: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum


War movies are nothing what they used to be. In the raging seventies and eighties, films were released that changed wars the way we looked at them. Oliver Stone’s “Platoon” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” were two films that displayed the actual horror of wars. Hell, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” took more than three years just to become the perfect war film.

But lately, war films have sucked big time. Brian DePalma’s “Redacted” isn’t nearly as good as it should be. Robert Redford’s “Lion for Lambs” was boring and stupid. Even Mike Nichols’s flashback to the Cold War with “Charlie Wilson’s War” could have even used a little bit more work, and I loved that film. It doesn’t look to clear up anytime soon, being that Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie” keeps getting pushed back (it may not be true, but I’m starting to think that the film isn’t as good as to what has been promised).

“Stop-Loss” isn’t on the list of the best war films ever, but it is a great way to reintroduce the war formula. While it takes a completely different look of the war that the other ones don’t, it shows just as much paranoia and trauma that all of the other ones have. Now I’m not going to sit here and argue about the film being pro-soldier or anti-war. If you want to hear a stupid argument like that, you can take your asses back to the IMDb message boards where you belong.

The film begins in Iraq. Ryan Phillippe plays Brandon King, a soldier fighting next to his best friends from Texas, including Steve (Channing Tatum, in a role where he is actually being useful instead of being Vanilla Ice) and Tommy. (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) They’re ambushed where they lose a few friends, which is always a tough time for a soldier. A couple days later, their services are over and they arrive back to Texas, where they are greeted with thank yous and hugs and kisses. It seems like everyone is happy to be back…

That’s until a few nights later. Steve’s girlfriend Michele (Abbie Cornish, in a career defining role) gets punched in the face by Steve and finds him sleeping in a hole that he dug with his gun. Tommy has been getting into an assload of trouble with drinking and violence. It seems like the only one that anyone can talk to around Texas is Brandon, but he refuses to accept that. When Brandon realizes that he is being shipped back into Iraq (they call it stop-lossed), Brandon and Michele travel to Washington DC to find the Senator (Josef Sommer) so he can bail him out. In the meantime, things spiral at home, until everything starts crashing down…

“Stop-Loss” starts out hard and hitting, which decides whether or not it can get into the mood of being a hard to watch film. Believe me, out of all of the films that I’ve watched this year (and count them, 241 of them), this opening scene might just have been the hardest to watch. It’s not even the fact that it is taking place in a battle zone like the alleyway that it takes place in. You start sensing the fact that these three main characters, played by Phillippe, Tatum, and Gordon-Levitt, are committed to their job and themselves. These characters will do anything for each other.

As the film goes on, “Stop-Loss” starts to slow down, but it is just as traumatizing as ever. The hardest to watch is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. There isn’t anything that this guy cannot do. He played such a great and tough character in “Brick,” a confusing but fantastic job as a man without short-term memory, and now he is playing a guy who can’t seem to catch a break. We take the war and the guys who fight it all for granted, but they do more than put their lives on the line. They put everything on the line for us. He plays a character that has done just that, but now he has nothing left to give. He plays it perfectly. The role must have required a lot of hard work and research. It would have definitely fucked me over.

But as it goes on longer, the more uneven “Stop-Loss” becomes. It doesn’t switch sides throughout the entire movie, but as Phillippe and Cornish continue their journey to Washington DC, it becomes one big bore. That being said, whenever Tatum and/or Gordon-Levitt are on-screen, the film boosts on enthusiasm. Surprisingly this is the first time I can ever say anything good about Channing Tatum. Instead of acting like the big tough guy, he stoops down to a level that is likeable. He’s not the leading man anymore, but he’s not the follower. He’s the guy that is in the middle of everything. I’d go into further detail, but I think I spoiled enough for the day.

After Phillippe returns home, the movie takes a sudden turn, and suddenly, I forgot about everything that happened earlier in the film and just got mad. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I just kept asking what the point of watching the film was. Was it to show that the Iraq war has to be stopped? Was it to be political? Or how about just to say it was a happy ending? These questions are left unanswered at the end of “Stop-Loss,” but I can assure everyone that there is not a happy moment in the film. It’s depressing and overwhelming, but isn’t that what we see on the news to begin with?