Rating of
2.5/4
You should have the option to stop...
Lee - wrote on 02/12/13
I'm not sure why however in every media you look up this film, everyone seems to state that it's a semi- documentary? Documentaries rarely use actors and are all real events..no? Well even though i had seen this before and noticed i hadn't posted either a review or ranking here on FC so let's take care of that shall we? the thing i enjoyed the most about this film was that not only did it suffice my war film cravings for a bit it deploys a very important message that i'm quite certain alot of people are unaware of and that is the subject that is also the title of this film 'Stop-loss'.
Stop-loss is the military term for the Us government to re-use soldiers (Without informing them ahead of time) and redeploy them in said country without giving them much choice in the matter no matter if their tours are done..no matter what. The soldier now has to return or face imprisonment. Although not mentioned much in the daily newspapers, it seems to bring out another term in quite a few soldiers and that is...A.W.O.L
Director Kimberl Pierce(Boys Dont Cry) brings us an emotional yet bang on to the point film here in which U.S. Army staff sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillipe) after a mishap while on duty whilst trying to save fellow soldier and buddy Steve Schriver (Channing Tatum) that causes the death of an innocent Iraqi family returns home as Brandon's tours are now complete. You see all the boys in Brandon's troupe are all freinds from the same little town in Texas. Both Shriver and King are awarded both a bronze metal and purple heart medals in a homecoming ceremony. The boys then gather at a town dance having a few drinks and celbrating King's final return home.
Upon returing back to the barracks to return his equipment and paper work he is now informed he has been stop lossed and is expected to return to duty asap. This enrages King who whilst being escorted back to his barracks, knocks out the two guards excorting him and flees now labelling him AWOL.
The rest of the film we see that Brandon has some important life decisions to make either return and face the concequences or continue running and hiding for the rest of his life.
A pretty good film that like i said deploys alot of life messages with a great cast fo the coolest actors makes this one not too miss.
