Stop-Loss
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Movie Reviews of Stop-Loss
Movie Review: Kimberly Pierce's 2nd movie...and it got buried
Summary: 5 Stars
The thoughtful delicacy of Ryan Phillippe is told best in his own words about this film: "We were there [on location, Morocco] in full [military] gear, with these assault rifles, on what's akin to their Christmas. We were barging into peoples' actual homes to shoot those scenes. I felt incredibly uncomfortable and ashamed at the time."
It's easy to understand how this film got buried in some sort of weird shuffle back in the year '08. Back then, only two years ago, even I did not know what the hell was going on with the Iraqi War or our soldiers coming home. This film will answer those queries for you richly and sometimes horribly--and then you too will be demanding that George W. Bush explain himself.
We promised ourselves we'd never see ANY Iraq or Afghanistan movie, EVER. I finally violated that to my chagrin with the unworthy IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH. For that reason alone I did it again here, and was not sorry for a moment (except about the truths I learned from this movie).
The beautiful Ryan Phillippe plays Army Special Forces Sgt. Brandon King, an honorable example our fighting best. He's about to get discharged and he cannot wait to get back into life at home in Brazos, Texas. Somehow getting on the wrong side of his commander, he's chosen for "stop-loss".
In case you did not know, "stop-loss" was then-Pres. Bush's backdoor draft to stop our soldier losses. His answer was to simply shanghai discharged soldiers right back to the front. This film is the story of one soldier's defiant attitude toward the war, its ultimate meaning and why it should never have occurred. The intimacy and beauty of the shots--especially the home-video-type close-up work--will make you feel keenly the same horror and loss felt by the soldiers.
Ryan acquitted himself well here...I think he's one of our shining stars of the future and is totally underappreciated right now. Kimberly Pierce directed; she was deeply involved in both film versions of BOYS DON'T CRY (1995 and 1999). Perhaps that explains the sergeant's first name?...Here she shows an astonishing sensitivity, empathy and understanding of the entire war experience, though her taste for hyperbolic emotional scenes at times reminded me of the high school acting classes I used to mock on my way to the weight room.
The ending will shock and awe you--I won't give it away in case you haven't seen this revelatory film yet. All I can say is I was deeply depressed and disgusted by the film's unforeseen ending. You will be too: guaranteed.
All the great talent here must go unmentioned, because I haven't the time or space. One query I have is the wasted talent of Ciaran Hinds, who plays Sgt. King's father. He gets a few minutes of broken up screen time and a couple of speaking lines. He is a talented, major star and busy at home (he's Irish and works in Britain mostly); why does he make this cameo here? I was angry throughout the whole film that he didn't have a meatier role. And he does a darned good Texan accent too.
Also, Pierce gave us an example in each character of typical soldiers: there is the career guy, the loser who cannot cope outside the theater, the maimed little cute mascot, and others. All there to make the viewer weep.
Naturally this poor neglected gem had fierce competition in 2008: DOUBT, FROST/NIXON, GRAN TORINO (see my reviews for all), INDIANA JONES AND HIS LOSER FRIENDS, IRON MAN, TWILIGHT (see my reviews), and WALL-E. Tough darned competition for a film that should have been the winner of the year.
Get this film and learn all about the hypocrisy, corruption and just plain low-down war tactics with regards to Iraq and Afghanistan. Then you may be at least a tad more prepared the next time you talk about this evil terror and what it will mean for generations to come.
Movie Review: Wow!
Summary: 5 Stars
How decent, brave, fairly naive kids get taken advantage of, is what this film invites us to think about. It is more a film about the psychological casualties of war stateside than about battle in Iraq. There is just enough battle to show why kids might have bad dreams and family problems when they get home, and so those scenes were necessarily condensed.This may be somewhat unrealistic, and certainly not representative for all soldiers, much as Jarhead may be not representative of everyone with regard to the boredom side of being in the military.
I do think absolutely that we should honor men and women who enlist with their eyes wide open. But many kids tend to have their eyes wide shut and the system too often takes advantage of this. This has been explored in many films. Gallipoli is one of my favorites. In Stop Loss as in the Australian film Gallipoli the kids were rather simple boys. Stop Loss deals with more or less beer-drinking small-town rural kids who are basically robust and any disillusionment does not come to the surface on the battlefield, although they are getting some kind of wake-up but they are tough and adaptable and it stays within.
The serious psychological conflicts erupt when they get back home for awhile. I think that the acting here of conflicted youth and the different individual ways of handling it (or not) is really great and the best feature of the film. Statistically sure not every soldier experiences post traumatic stress and/or family problems - but the point is that when it does happen, and it surely does! -- it can take many forms from subtle to quite overt.
It is easier to remember the dead than the damaged. I find it offensive that we honor the dead as heroes and too often treat the psychologically damaged as though they are not full human beings but rather "weak," or "cowards," or "misfits." In this particular war we even seem to try to keep the physically damaged soldiers out of the public mind, and bring the dead back quietly to keep the coffins away from the media.
Maybe this is the price of an all volunteer army, to keep the unpleasant stuff out of sight so that those kids who are naive will enlist with their eyes wide shut. Stop Loss offers kids an opportunity to think through some of the unpleasant things of which they may be unaware.
But even for an older person like me I think the film was a very well done fictional exploration of some of the home front realities of wars and of the War in Iraq in particular.
Movie Review: I'm getting out!...(not)
Summary: 5 Stars
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. His contract is up and he just about to get out when he is stop-lossed (a "fine-print" section in all soldiers' contracts that gives the President the power to extended soldier's contracts in time of war). He refuses to be shipped back to Iraq, and goes AWOL in search of his state's senator for help. 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. It brings up many good points, but never bashes you with a certain viewpoint but leaves it to you to decide. This is such emotionally powerful, deeply moving film, the best film I have seen since the year started, and destined to be one of my favorites from this year.
Movie Review: 3 Of The Finest Boys in the Business, In Uniform.
Summary: 5 Stars
Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ryan Phillippe -someone has been browsing my wetdream files. Besides the eyecandy, this is a really good movie about three guys who served in Iraq (I think it was Iraq) and one of them got Stop-Lossed, Ryan Phillippe was done with his tour of duty and something flipped when he got recalled. He was about go awhol, but well... see the movie. Its really good.
Joseph Gordon Levitt, (give me a minute while I swoon) I met him at valley college years ago, and have been in love IN LOVE with him ever since, he is a really cool and down to earth guy. OMG,my heart is beating really fast. I need an asprin. OK, Im good. Joe, is a troubled military guy who cant seem to control both his violence and his temper. He is having a really tough time readjusting to life away from the battle field, and it just gets to the point where his friends see him traveling down and very dangerous road.
Finally, Channing Tatum, man this guy is so awsome. I mean, he is just cool, just smooth, just... NE Way. He is experiencing problems with flashbacks and bad dreams, but he is a dedicated soldier and returns to the call of duty. You get a nice little troubling scene with him in his underwear -he use to be a stripper you know, damn talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity.
NE way, this is a really great movie, that I think will make a person respect the soldiers and what they really give up for their country.
What messed this movie up for me, is that the chick in this movie (rumor has it) is the reason why Reese and Ryan broke up. Thats sucks, I thought they were the perfect couple. NE Way, great movie.
Movie Review: Well Done!!
Summary: 5 Stars
There are films that make you feel you wasted your time, films you leave in the middle of or at the beginning because of the lack of content, this is NOT one of them. This film will get GREAT reviews or it will get bad ones from those that would once again vote for the guy with "W" as a middle name. You will love it or hate it; there will not be a middle of the road on this one. Let's leave the politics out of it folks, this is a film that does not pull at you, it yanks your heart right out of your chest if you have one - I left it feeling human because it moved me, and made me THINK. President John F. Kennedy once said to 5 Nobel laureates having dinner in the White House that there had never been so much intelligence gathered at one time in this room with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dinned alone (I would have given the credit to his friend and spiritual guide John Adams but let's leave that for another day). One of Thomas Jefferson's best known quotes - "Those that would give up their freedoms in the name of SAFETY and SECURITY will be neither SAFE nor SECURE and certainly not free. The current policies of this country have fed on the American obsession with our personal safety, maybe we should listen to one of our founding fathers. AS a 26 year fire fighter veteran - I think there is a time to leave a burning building because staying and dying is not going to accomplish anything.