Rating of
3/4
An Important Issue
Franz Patrick - wrote on 09/14/08
I appreciate Kimberly Peirce for making a pretty effective film about a policy that is (unfortunately) not familiar to a lot of Americans: stop-loss. Basically, stop-loss involuntarily extends a soldier’s service even if his or her contract has ended. Ryan Phillippe continues to add another serious film in his repertoire and he’s effective here as a soldier who doesn’t want to go back to Iraq. He owns every scene he’s in because you can see in his eyes that determination of wanting to live his own life after serving in the military. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Channing Tatum also did a great job portraying soldiers that took different paths. The film started off well–the scenes in the battlefield is nothing short of gripping. Unfortunately, the picture became a little unfocused somewhere in the middle when Phillippe’s character decided to go AWOL. Still, there were scenes during the middle portion that stood out and established that these soldiers aren’t done being in the war even if they’ve returned home. They go through guilt, post-traumatic stress disorders, and anger; once a person goes to war, there is no going back. What really didn’t work for me, though, was the jarring hip-hop and hard rock soundtrack. I think the film could’ve been elevated with a slow, political folk songs instead. This film is very sad on the surface but very angry in its core.
