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Reviews Counted:138
Fresh:89
Rotten:49
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Stop-Loss is sincere and complex, and features strong performances, even if it tries to cover too much ground.
Theatrical Release:25-04-2008
Synopsis: Director Kimberly Peirce (BOYS DON'T CRY) tackles another controversial topic with STOP-LOSS, the story of a U.S. soldier forced back into battle. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) has just returned to... [More]
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Distancing Stop-Loss from other Iraq films by highlighting an American military tactic that has been little talked about, Peirce has crafted a credible but hardly outstanding effort that may disappoint those expecting another Boys Don't Cry.
Top CriticStop Loss takes some time out from the argument over the validity of the war to ask a question closer to home - whether the emotional battlefield America subjects its young soldiers to is actually worth it.
Top CriticIt’s the film equivalent of a weary shrug – capturing the national mood at a moment when we’d all prefer some mood enhancers.
Top CriticStrong performances from the young cast make a compelling case that the US govt is failing its soldiers, but the film’s a little too much of a blunt instrument.
Top CriticKimberly Peirce's long-awaited follow-up to Boys Don't Cry is a thought-provoking, emotionally engaging drama that packs a surprisingly powerful punch.
Feverish yet bizarrely apolitical, the movie tries to have it both ways and fumbles its outraged and reconciliatory impulses equally
Peirce's sincerity and smarts cannot quite defuse the overall didactic nature of the piece.
Following the harrowing and superbly made opening sequences of hand to hand combat in Iraq, we can feel the frustrations and the anger through the film, and we sympathise. But the film has a confused message ...
Stop-Loss is a tough film to watch and one that raises issues of concern that travel far beyond the war-torn regions. But whether its message is accurately targeted is for the viewer to decide
...once it makes its point, it tends to pile on, never making an entirely convincing drama nor an entirely convincing argument.
The film gets pretty heavy handed in the last third and is weighed down by an inadequate performance.
The reason "Stop Loss" works, unlike its 2007 predecessors, is that it cares more about its characters than it does about making a political point.
[Peirce's] film looks at the fallout of war in lives lost and lives ruined, pain that has a trickle-up effect on our nation's image of itself.
It strokes every personal ideal, whatever it is, rather than aligning itself with its characters and letting the conclusions arise out of who they are.
Though it is very message oriented and a little sloppy at times, I found the subject to be really interesting and the opening war scene will blow you away.
The war in Iraq has itself become the realization of the shameful "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (it's not just gays and lesbians that are being told to look the other way). Stop-Loss reveals just one ugly aspect of such insidiousness.
An honest vocalization of the inchoate discomfort so many Americans on either side of the political divide are feeling.
But whatever you think about the Iraq war and the people who are fighting in it, you'll be shaken up and moved by Stop-Loss.
Telling antiwar film as seen through the eyes of those patriotic volunteers who fought in Iraq and are now disillusioned.
A powerful film that doesn't pull punches, "Stop-Loss" is the first important film of 2008.
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