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DVD : Stop-LossBrowse or Search and Buy Online our Best Sellers Shopping Sales of DVD and Stop-Loss. Rating:  - "Your country needs you to go back."Ryan Phillippe is Staff Sergeant Brandon King, the leader of a battalion fighting in a small town in Iraq. One day, the battalion is attacked by some Iraqis in a taxicab, and King and his men chase after the culprits. The chase ends in an alleyway, where they pursue on foot. Unfortunately, they are ambushed and several of King's men are killed. We then flash forward to King and some of his pals going back home to Texas for leave. Some of them, including King, will be released, and they talk about their plans....and get drunk and fight and play with guns. These men don't seem very stable, although some of it may be related to the flashbacks they have to the atrocities in Iraq. Their leave draws to a close, and King goes back to base for one final check-in, anticipating that he will soon be a civilian. However, when he tries to check-out, he's informed by a random bureaucrat that he has to go back to Iraq - he's been stop-lossed. King is outraged, punches out a few soldiers, and hightails it home. The rest of the movie progresses from there. "Stop-Loss" starts off very strong and builds some nice characterizations, but really takes a chance by having the protagonist take on a less than heroic stance. I suspect that some people cheered his actions; after all, the Iraq war is very unpopular and seen as unjust by many people. However, it was never clear to me why King was so upset about his stop-loss. Was he afraid of getting killed (he mentioned this a few times), was he suffering from PTSD and needed help (perhaps), or was he just mad that he wasn't informed earlier (seems so)? With such murky intentions, the character comes off as unlikeable and petulant at times. This problem made his journey far less impactful than it should have been, even when he meets with one of his former battalion members who was severely injured. Also, as others here have mentioned, it just didn't seem realistic that he was told at such a late time that he was stop-lossed. This detail and a few other issues again really impacted the movie for me. Ryan Phillippe also gives a bland performance, which further dilutes the message and emotional impact. His accent at times is so heavy it's hard to understand him and then it's nearly gone at other times. What starts off as a powerful examination of war and its effects ends up a total mess - what a shame. Rating:  - Not totally accurate, but heartbreakingHow you feel about this movie will depend on how you feel about the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the first place. I've been reading 1-star reviews by pro-military people, including active duty soldiers saying, "These guys are cowards. If you volunteer, you're giving your life to the military, so do your duty." And 4-star reviews by people who are against the war, saying StopLoss captures the heartbreak and trauma this war has caused. I know this movie isn't particularly accurate, but I still think it's strong. From the point of view of most of the world, this is a movie about the bad guys. These soldiers are people who, because of cultural and economic pressure, joined the military thinking they were protecting their country. But the military (and the whole government) were controlled by war criminals. They were sent into a battle that had nothing to do with 9/11. It was the product of leaders who wanted to conquer the world. They were betrayed into becoming the Imperial Storm Troopers from Star Wars. And when they try to get out, they are stop-lossed and sent back. I know a lot of soldiers will strongly disagree (although I know some who agree just as strongly.) I know most soldiers try to do the right thing. But you can't do right when you're put into a situation where there is no right, in a country where you were never wanted. I think Stop Loss captures their helplessness very well. I only wish the movie makers had mentioned the possibility of refusing orders and doing your time, instead of running away or going back. Of soldiers who have refused to return, almost nobody has had to do more than a year. IMO, that's better than facing death or PTSD, or becoming a war criminal. But see the film and decide for yourself. Learn more at the CouragetoResist web site. Rating:  - Stop the LossesThis movie has a strong anti-war message but presents it in a way that does not dishonor or diminish the soldiers on the front line. It does however offer a pointed and legitimate critique of the government and military leaders. The acting is solid, each character with their own hopes, biases, struggles and loyalties. The painful reality of combat and its indelible impact on those who fight speaks for itself and challenges viewers to look at what they believe in and why. Rating:  - Wow!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. Rating: - Stop Loss by BrandonThis movie was o.k. I thought it would be better than it was. The story was good and so were the actors, but it had too many cliches and the movie was too drawn out. Average. |