Sick Product of a Sick System

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) and his men get caught in an ambush in Tikrit, Iraq. Several are killed in the incident. King returns home to Texas as a hero. Senator Orton Worrell promises to care for his injured comrade Rodriguez. His friend Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) shows signs of PTSD scaring his fiancée Michelle (Abbie Cornish). Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is drunk and gets thrown out by his wife. Brandon, Tommy and Steve report back to the military. Brandon is surprised to be stop-loss. He is ordered back to Iraq despite expecting to be discharged. He goes AWOL. Along with Michelle, he heads for D.C. to get help from Senator Worrell.There are a few interesting performances but the movie takes on too much. It needs more scenes of quiet character development and concentrate on fewer people. Not everything has to be issues about being a soldier. It pushes a little too hard when King goes super-soldier on those thieves. There's probably a better and simpler movie in here.

I enjoy making up "double-bill" evening nights with films that match in some way--both versions of The Maltese Falcon, for instance, or two films about pianists. An evening spent watching both Stop-Loss and The Hurt Locker comparing their strengths and weakness was fascinating,comparing brilliant and committed performances from the two lead actors, Ryan Phillippe and Jeremy Remmer. The latter film seems to center on the kind of man who is addicted to war and does his job well, but Peirce's film shows a bright young man from Texas who experiences some brutal battle, has done his time, and then is called back, simply because the war is eating up the other volunteers. It is curious that what was once a strictly male director's province, i.e., war films, has been usurped by two women: both Peirce and Kathleen Bigelow delve deeply into the male experience of battle, the former also connecting with what the people back home are feeling and experiencing. Both films question the validity of war from different viewpoints, and while not luridly political, deliver some scathing commentary on its effects on the human mind; while Stop-Loss is no Paths of Glory, it is effective story-telling, perhaps enlightening viewers clueless about those who are shipped overseas more than once.

Stop-Loss is quite a controversial movie. It's not your regular war movie. It has few scenes which the story happens in Iraq, but mainly it goes in US where the soldiers have returned from the mission. They are trying to conflate back to civilian life which actually seems harder than going through battles back in the far east. It's intriguing because the movie has a point against the government system which has a fail spot. But for me, what I really enjoyed, was the story more important than the vital factor for which the movie wanted to point the finger to.I liked the cast. Young and talented actors such as Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt give all good performances. And also we got good-looking Abbie Cornish. Stand-out performance - Joseph Gordon-Levitt.I suggest to see the movie because of its talent. You see the future and probably you like it.

This is a surprisingly good film about the effects of war on young minds, brainwashing and the illusion of freedom.Brandon doesn't return to the front because he believes it's the right thing to do but because he doesn't want to be on the run for the rest of his life. He's caught in a well-laid trap.Why they opted for Mexico had to be to help make the final "decision" easier; any idiot would have opted to head back to Toronto since that was the best and original plan. Mexico? Abbie Cornish is sexy (I've never seen her before) but she really was sexier than sexy in this no sex, no nudity film. Beautiful, caring and cool. I admired her subtext. I realized later that it was because she acted HUMAN rather than like a female. She didn't act like a GIRL stereotype or a GUY, she acted like a PERSON. Very charming and unusual.The one scene that bothered me was when Brandon was on the ground getting kicked by 3 guys then gets up and kicks their asses. That's unrealistic and might convince some young nut to JOIN the army (to learn to fight) rather than run in the other direction. I had an experience with "An Officer And A Gentleman" when I was young and stupid where I wound up at the recruiters the next day and, fortunately, didn't sign when common sense prevailed. Some of these films (like "Top Gun") may be subtle recruitment films that draw enlisters for the wrong reasons.The scene I DID love was when Phillipe and Cornish left Rodriguez and the smile on his face dropped away and we realized he was giving us a positive spin on a worse than lousy situation.Interesting that they cast Timothy Oliphant as the charming Sarge who brings in enlisters, employing friendship and charm rather than the realities of war.Then the excellent fight in the cemetery with independent thinker Brandon versus "bought the brainwashing" Steve who just doesn't get it. That's the problem with every army, they want the soldiers to be smart enough to fight but not smart enough to break ranks and walk away.