Billed as “an inspirational film about friends, loyalty, and camaraderie” and hailed by Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers as “The first major movie of the new year that touches greatness,” Stop-Loss stars Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The plot simply follows the story of a group of friends returning home from a tour of duty in Iraq in a documentary style. Stereotypically, the friends become troubled by conflicting ideals, re-adjustment to non-war life, and alcoholism and the movie simply follows them, as if peering in through and MTV shaped window.
The word that keeps showing itself throughout this movie is “propaganda.” While that may sound a bit harsh, trust me it’s not. This movie is consciously trying to make you believe that specifically the war in Iraq is causing an entire generation to become lost. It goes about its obvious agenda throughout the film, simply choosing to ignore the idea that anyone who has ever been in a war has returned home changed. The idea they neglect consistently is that not all change involves depression, violence, and conflicting ideals. The idea that the media’s disdain for the current war may be a large part of what has caused former soldiers to be conflicted in these ways is also politely ignored. Unlike other wars, with the exception of Vietnam, those at home treated their soldiers like heroes for the voluntary defense of human rights, media included.
To get back to the movie though, not much really happens here. It’s slow-paced, disjointed and the acting, at best, is semi-believable. Admittedly, it’s hard to keep an objective view when you are watching something with such an in-your-face agenda and the actors certainly suffer for the directors and writers need to exorcise their own demons. I don’t feel this movie is good on any level and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. There are plenty of movies out there who have a more neutral presentation, but I suppose that this is what one should expect from MTV Films.
Reviewed by Mark Fisher
