Oh, the “Iraq movie.” How do you get people to pay $10 to see a film about our troubles in the Middle East? Hollywood has been trying to break this impossible code for some time now, and a slew of films – Lions for Lambs, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, etc. – haven’t hit cinematic gold. Stop-Loss, a mid-level movie with mid-level stars, doesn’t either, though it is a respectable attempt.
Stop-Loss follows Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe, Breach), who is the commander of a squad of American soldiers in Iraq. His tour finished, Brandon returns home, ready to be done with military service. But the army informs him he has been called back for another tour, a practice known as “being stop-lossed.” Feeling he has been cheated, King goes AWOL, running off to find friendly Sen. Orton Worrell (Josef Sommer, The Invasion) with the naive hope that doing so will solve his problem. Meanwhile, Stop-Loss focuses on King’s burnt-out crew and the negative effects the war has had on their lives.
MTV, the money behind Stop-Loss, has put a heavy marketing campaign behind the film in an effort to court young viewers. But apparently this approach also influenced the film’s casting – all of the leads are incredibly good-looking, and which makes them harder to believe as “real.” It seems unlikely that every American soldier could also moonlight as an Abercrombie and Fitch model.
Thankfully, these handsome actors can actually get the job done. Philippe has proven himself with Breach and Crash, and he does well as the dutiful soldier turned disenchanted (his performance might be just a bit too mannered, but this is a minor complaint).
And, as the ready-to-reenlist Steve, Channing Tatum shows again (after A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints) that he can do more than make cameos in Step Up sequels for the rest of his career. But the show is stolen by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout), who portrays the deeply disturbed Tommy. Tommy always seems to have a fog in his brain, and even when he’s “joking around,” there’s a sad edge to everything he does. Add this role to stellar turns in little-seen masterpieces Brick and The Lookout, and Levitt should definitely be considered one of the top young actors working today.
Still, these actors – all fine in their own ways – can only do so much because their characters are too thinly drawn. Writer-director Kimberly Pierce (off a near decade hiatus since 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry) and co-writer Mark Richard (from television’s Huff) don’t show us enough about these people for us to connect with them emotionally as “real” people. Add some obvious dialogue and this script, while solid, isn’t a knockout.
This isn’t to rip Stop-Loss apart. There are some excellent sequences, such as a particularly gripping opening battle in Iraq. Pierce really conveys a feeling of dangerous claustrophobia as the very alien-looking American troops battle in an urban Iraqi environment. Enemies seem to pop out from anywhere and everywhere, and the tension is palpable.
Overall, Stop-Loss is a mixed bag. Certain scenes work and the performances are very good, but the film doesn’t really tell us anything new about the war in Iraq or its effects upon the soldiers who served there. The film does shed light on the practice of being stop-lossed, but without vivid characters, we can’t really feel the personal costs of this practice as much as the film would like us to.
A very fine effort, but not a transcendent one, Stop-Loss isn’t going to break the “Iraq movie” curse.
dan.benamor@gmail.com
RATING: 3 STARS OUT OF 5
