Stop Loss Army - Exploring post-traumatic stress disorder caused by combat and the added stress of being forced to re-enlist in the military, Stop-Loss sheds a familiar light on the human cost of war.
During a tour of duty in Iraq, US Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) leads his squad into an ambush. In the ensuing tense battle, the team suffers losses: Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk) is seriously wounded, "The Preacher" is killed, and Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is traumatized. King breaks into the building to rescue his close friend Sergeant Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum), but many civilians, including women and children, are killed in the process.
Stop Loss Army
Back in their small Texas community of Brezo, King, Shriver and Burgess are celebrated as heroes. Shriver shows signs of PTSD and hits on his girlfriend Michelle (Abbie Cornish), while Burgess embarks on an alcohol-fueled path of self-destruction. King longs to be released after serving his military duty, but is shocked to receive a "stop-loss" order from Lt. Col. Boot Miller (Timothy Olyphant), forcing him to serve another tour in Iraq. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL with Michelle's help. Shriver is torn between a sense of duty to his country and the wrongful actions of a friend.
Stop Loss': Portrait Of Raw Army Life
Directed and co-written by Kimberly Peirce, Stop-Loss makes good on its intent to expose the trauma of war, amplified by the dubious form of forced re-enlistment, essentially another name for conscription. Set in a protracted and unpopular five-year war, the film takes a simple aim and quickly sketches young men who believe they are doing the right thing, return scared and exhausted, only to be betrayed by the very organization they believed in.
After building a solid foundation with the opening battle and taking on the subsequent Small Town Hero, Stop-Loss remains for sale. When King refuses re-enlistment orders and sets off, the script spins in lazy circles. Looking for a way out of his predicament, King visits the badly wounded Rodriguez and Preacher's parents in a military hospital, who are useful, but perhaps not exactly the telltale tools of a hellish war that an AWOL sergeant would make.
The momentum is further lost when Shriver reappears to try to turn on his friend, and Michelle's triangle as Shriver's daughter, who helps King escape, remains shaky, not helped by unconvincing emotional outbursts. Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish are adequate in the stoic middle class, but struggle in the more expressive moments. A physical tussle in the graveyard becomes an awkward low instead of a cathartic high. Brandon King and Steve Shriver grew up together in a small town in Texas. In high school, they were heroes on the football field. After 9/11, they were drafted into the military and sent off to fight in Iraq. Now they return home to be hailed as war heroes by friends and neighbors. But just before their mission ends, their team engages in a firefight led by Brandon that costs the lives of three men and lands another in a military hospital, missing his eyes and both hands. It makes the soldiers' homecoming less than glorious.
With their enlistments complete, they both plan to leave the military. Steve is looking forward to marrying his fiancee of five years, Michelle, and Brandon is looking forward to a normal life again. But when Brandon goes to turn in the gear and sign the release papers, he's told he's "missing." Instead of retreating to his family ranch, he has gone back to Iraq thanks to a policy that allows the military to keep them temporarily employed after their commitment to active duty ends.
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Although distraught over the loss of his close friends, Brandon cannot stomach this fate. He goes blank, deciding to get help from his senator. If that doesn't change, he's considering running across the border. With Michelle's help, he pursues one possibility after another - and discovers that none of them are good. Meanwhile, Brandon's teammates are back in Texas doing their best to embody all the negative stereotypes they find about soldiers. They are angry, violent, volatile, irrational, delusional and still drunk. Their rebellious behavior ends in tragedy and forces Brandon to choose his least desirable option - return home, face his superiors and pay the price for his plane.
Brandon deeply feels the loss of the men who led him into battle and tries to come to terms with that loss. He deliberately encourages the wounded Rico's family and visits the family of the slain "Preacher".
] Although it's almost more than he can handle, Brandon admits that he led his men into the ambush and is therefore responsible for the loss of their lives. His confession comes with a respectable attitude about the place. Unfortunately, it happens so quickly that most viewers don't realize that Brandon, as the leader of the team, went outside of "standard operating procedure" by leading his men into the alley. This becomes the film's big philosophical problem, but more on that in the synopsis. …
Also praises the loyalty of families, using images and dialogue to make a strong statement against the killing of civilians in war. In the end, Brandon makes a commendable decision, even though his reasons are weak.
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The preacher probably got his nickname because of his religious devotion. Flashback scenes in the form of an amateur video filmed by soldiers in Brandon's unit show Preacher and a chaplain baptizing another soldier named Tommy. Tommy turns out to be a well-meaning but erratic convert and is the most violent in the film (although he expresses his desire to "do better over and over").
While positioning the men, Michelle sends Steve a video of her unbuttoning her blouse in front of the camera. She is shown in a bra. Latino soldier says "D-n Sarge, your fiancé is hot!" and jokes that if Michelle were single instead of Steve, they would "make beautiful Tex-Mex babies." Another soldier makes a rude comment about her breasts. Steve appears in two scenes wearing only pants. Colloquially known as "hookers".
When the boys return home, Steve quickly excuses himself and Michelle from the celebration, saying, "I've got some catching up to do." But their sweet reunion quickly turns sour, and Michelle invites Brandon home late at night. He is in a nightgown and his eye is black. She explains that she was warned to "goof around" too soon after he returned home, but she and Steve did anyway. He goes on to say that when his drinking impaired his sexual performance, he became "furious." She won't admit that Steve hit her, but it's clear that it happened.
Not many frames fly by before the central battle scene hits the screen. A car full of Iraqis drives through a checkpoint with guns blazing. American soldiers are chasing the civilians turned militants under the leadership of Brandon. They follow the chasers into an alley that is clearly a trap. In the ensuing conflict, Americans and Iraqis are killed with rifles, machine guns, and grenades, both hand-launched and rocket-propelled types. Vehicles burst into flames. Dead men, women and children fall against the walls, their blood splattering all around. Rico is hit by a grenade and onlookers see him with a disfigured face and leg.
Current, Former Airmen Eligible For Stop Loss Special Pay > Air Force's Personnel Center > Article Display
] Leaving the building, Brandon and Steve are confronted by an Iraqi with a hot hand grenade, who is using a child as a human shield. Brandon shoots and kills an adult and a child. This turns out to be a major factor in his later emotional distress.
On the state side, many soldiers are unable to stop the military violence. Viewers hear that the character has committed suicide. Tommy starts a bar fight. Steve gets very drunk and starts digging a foxhole in Michelle's front yard wearing only his underwear and a sidearm. He later states that he passed out (whether due to PTSD, intoxication, or both is unclear) and has no recollection of his erratic activities.
Steve, Tommy, Brandon and a civilian friend find "release" by using Tommy's failed wedding gifts for target practice. Brandon takes his anger out on a couple of thugs who steal his stuff. In return, they kick him and press his face. He treats them as if they were Iraqi prisoners of war, forcing them to their knees and threatening to shoot them, then firing two shots past their ears. Brandon's commanding officer threatens to make him "adjust his attitude." He gets away by punching and kicking his two MPs. An angry Tommy throws a beer bottle through the window of a jewelry store.
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The filmmakers have tried to realistically depict life in an infantry unit, where profanities flow so freely they are like punctuation marks. More than 60 f-words make up the lion's share, with a couple associated with the word "mother" and another couple used in a sexual context. Twenty words, more than ten mild profanities and
