Rating: 3 / 10

Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Channing Tatum

The plot: Phillippe plays Brandon King, a soldier who has just returned from two tours of duty in Iraq. Just before he’s ready to settle back into everyday life, he’s “stop lossed” and placed back into the army indefinitely.

The good: “Stop-Loss” is an interesting excursion of one soldier attempting to escape the army. Phillippe’s portrayal of the dissenting soldier is done well enough for the audience to believe him, even though his situation doesn’t always seem realistic.

The bad: Unfortunately, Phillippe’s performance was the only good thing about this movie, and while Phillippe is a strong actor, he can’t dissuade enough attention from this movie’s flaws.
The sad part about “Stop-Loss” is its own ignorance. In a time of war, this movie could have made an interesting and rather dramatic message, but that is all lost amidst stereotypes of small towns in Texas.

When King returns from the war, he comes back with friends, and none can get their lives back together. They all suffer from eventual destroyed relationships and flashbacks. They drink too much, get into fights, drive drunk, hit girlfriends and give only one–dimensional presentations of themselves. This movie does more to say bad things about Texans than it does about the war.

The lowdown: ”Stop-Loss” is another example of a good premise gone completely wrong. That might be the doing of MTV Productions, who made this movie feel like an overdone teen drama with guns. The script simply cannot be mature enough for what the concept demands.

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