Director: Kimberly Peirce

Runtime: 113mins

The term "Stop-Loss" refers to a policy within the United States military where soldiers who have already completed their contracted service can be involuntarily sent back into active duty. This policy has seen the United States already send approximately 80,000 of its soldiers back into service. Knowing that the film is based around this policy you can pretty much gauge how you’re going to feel about the issue already. As a piece of entertainment it doesn’t particularly work, and as a message it’s probably already preaching to the converted.

Insert Staff Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) who has come home from his tour in Iraq with his friends and cohorts, Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) and Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon Levitt). Brandon believes he has served his country honourably and is ready to settle back down into a normal life in Texas. That is until he is Stop-Lossed and told that he will be sent back out to Iraq to fight again. Feeling more than a little short-changed by the military he decides to go AWOL with the help of Shriver’s girlfriend Michelle (Abbie Cornish).

Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) had originally conceived this to be a documentary. One sort of wishes she had stuck to that plan because as a film, the content never really amounts to anything worthwhile. The opening sequence, which takes place in Iraq, is the most tension filled and exciting part of the movie. You immediately get the sense of danger that these soldiers have to face everyday as anyone could be potentially dangerous. This sequence, which results in fallen comrades and loss of innocent lives, is all too short, however the incident is referred to so many times throughout the movie it loses what little impact it makes.

The entire mid-section of the movie is all set up, as the soldiers deal with the immediate effects of Post Traumatic Stress upon returning home with familiar results. Once Brandon goes AWOL as a result of Stop-Loss, the movie turns into a cliché-ridden road movie that becomes a hybrid of a poor man’s First Blood and Deer Hunter. Adding to that, you have performances that are marred by the collective attractiveness of the main cast, which is more than a little distracting. What is most infuriating are the handheld camera montages set to rap music and metal which come off as a horrible MTV inspired embarrassment – as Beck would sing, "MTV makes me wanna smoke crack".

**

ELWOOD LEE

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