Stop-Loss
Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss is raw, plausible, shocking, and otherwise piled high with aesthetic virtue, not the least of which is the way it faces squarely the impossible situation American troops are faced with in Iraq. Perhaps because the script is a collaboration between Peirce, said to be anti-war, and Mark Richard, said to be pro-war, the film puts its central character, Brandon King (Ryan Philippe) in an impossible situation. Called up for a second tour in Iraq when he was sure he was entitled to an exit pass, squad leader King faces nothing but bad choices. Will he skip out and betray his buddies? Will he go back and betray his mind? Call this an extended metaphor for the whole misbegotten war--there aren't going to be any happy endings. In every wrenching way, the war is a trap. Don't believe the critics who tell you the film is ragged and therefore flawed. All the characters have human dimension. The raggedness is the raggedness of the Odyssey. By the end, you can hardly breathe.
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