When I first saw the flier for “Stop-Loss” fall out of my newspaper weeks ago, with the header “MTV Films” plastered across it, I admit that I scoffed. This movie, purporting to be about the Iraq conflict, would likely look more like “Step Up: Baghdad” than a war story if MTV was involved, but this was not the case.
The movie has its share of problems. In its quixotic quest to explore the varied lives of Iraq war veterans the movie gets somewhat confused, suffering from a few continuity problems and overwrought drama. However, director Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) displays such talent for capturing the vibrancy and sorrow of her young actors that the cliches are forgivable, leaving the audience with a compelling and elegant examination of war that considers its intrinsic complexities.
“Stop-Loss” stars Ryan Phillippe (“Breach”) as Brandon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (“The Lookout”) as Tommy and Channing Tatum (“Step Up”) as Steve, all as young soldiers returning home to Texas from a particularly harrowing tour in Iraq where they saw a number of their good friends killed or maimed. The friends have already decided how they will spend their time once they are able to get out of the service, but upon returning to the United States their lives begin to fall apart.
Brandon finds out he’s been stop-lossed, meaning that the government has extended his duty in Iraq due to a hidden clause in his contract. Steve and Tommy both suffer from extreme post-traumatic stress disorder. Steve acts manically, drinking excessively and digging foxholes in his front yard, while Tommy also develops a serious drinking problem and alienates his wife. Brandon goes AWOL and futilely fights the backdoor draft while Steve and Tommy struggle to live life outside the army.
For all its drama, the film’s continuity problems detract from this story. The characters appear to hop from location to location, alternating residence from their small hometown to their backwoods ranch. Brandon takes three days to travel by car across the state of Texas, then drives all the way to New York City on the fourth day to then turn around and drive right back to Texas the next day. This is physically possibly, but he does it with such ease — especially for a fugitive — that the director and writer could have come up with a much more plausible scenario with just a little more work.
But the larger problem with the movie is that every soldier they profile ends up suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and obvious alcoholism. Even Brandon, the level-headed leader of the group, begins to suffer from visions and flashbacks. The movie thus can mire in melodrama as the young men constantly freak out and scream at each other and their loved ones.
However, whenever the movie seems as though it is about to get way too over the top, Peirce and her young actors display an uncanny ability to ground their melodrama in sincerity. The pain of the floundering Tommy seems so real that it is uncomfortable watching his life spiral out of control as his wife leaves him and he can no longer find meaning to life without the regiment of the military. Victor Rasuk, who plays Brandon’s comrade horribly maimed in Iraq, delivers his performance with a simple yet contemplative quiet that is both refreshing and profoundly heartbreaking against the backdrop of Brandon and Steve’s fury.
Where this movie succeeds most, however, is in its careful handling of the multifaceted social and political implications of the war for its veterans. Peirce makes few concrete statements about the war. It is clear that she stands very much against the institution of stop-loss, but after that her bias becomes fuzzier.
Her soldiers don’t enjoy the knowledge of possibly being responsible for the deaths of civilians, yet they accept that it is a truth of the war. Steve decides to reenlist, feeling that life inside the military is safer than life outside the military. It’s not that he’s a killing machine, but rather that he finds comfort in his brother soldiers and the life they offer him. Brandon does not wish to continue fighting the war, but at the same time he never regrets that he went on his first tour and never condemns the war outright.
Almost every issue associated with the war on terror is considered in this equivocal manner. Peirce is not, for the most part, trying to disseminate her personal politics. Rather, she is like a painter subtly shaping, shading and highlighting her portrait of war so that the audience may stand back and see its full textures and hues.
So, while the film may have a few drawbacks, it tackles the new issues this war raises in some very effective ways. Peirce effectively lends a face and a voice to a war that the public often struggles to understand, justify or accept. It is not a perfect voice, but it is a good attempt at finding a narrative for the veterans of this endless war.
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3 1/2 stars out of 5
