It’s been a long time since we’ve had a movie from Kimberly Peirce— nine years, to be exact. Her last — and first — was the indie feature “Boys Don’t Cry,” which helped Hilary Swank take home her first Oscar.
“Stop-Loss,” produced by MTV Films and co-written with Mark Richard, is Peirce’s long-awaited sophomore film.
*** RATING | Soldiers’ Stories
Although there are moments of the awkward melodrama in this ambitious war/home-front film, this is no slump effort.
Anchored by deft performances from a sturdy ensemble that features Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum, (but also includes Ciarán Hinds and Linda Emond in key roles as parents), “Stop-Loss” provides proof of Peirce’s sensitivity with actors as well as her interest in stories of American folk who don’t often get the close-ups they should.
The title refers to the Pentagon’s policy of retaining and redeploying soldiers and reservists after their contracts are up.
Staff Sgt. Brandon King (Phillippe) leads his men with a steady reserve.
Early in “Stop-Loss,” when random gunfire sounds, he is a voice of alert calm. When a car seems to rush the checkpoint in Iraq, his cooler head prevails.
A second car revs toward the checkpoint. This time it opens fire. A chase ensues. So does a disastrous ambush in a tight space. King loses some of his men. Dead civilians lie next to dead Iraqi fighters.
When Sgt. King and Sgt. Steve Shriver (Tatum) return home from this harrowing tour in Iraq, they fully expect to be “getting out.”
Instead, Sgt. King is stop- lossed.
Phillippe and Tatum are engaging as best friends who played football under the Friday night lights of Brazos, Texas; enlisted in the Army after 9/11; and have had each other’s backs in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Their homecoming, though loving, isn’t easy.
A commanding officer’s speech about DUIs, fighting with civilians and hitting loved ones goes unheeded by a number of King’s men.
Post-traumatic stress is thick in the air. Most troubled is Pfc. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Goron Levitt), who begins wrecking his marriage almost immediately.
In the midst of this fog of war, King still leads.
When King goes AWOL, the movie goes from an impressive coming-home tale to a more standard-issue road movie.
Abbie Cornish plays Michele. A lifelong friend and Shriver’s fiancee, she drives the bureaucracy-shocked Brandon to see a senator who had glad-handed the hero at a welcome-home event.
Still, hitting the road lets the movie delve further into the impact of the war (but also the stop-loss policy) on soldiers and their families.
In the opening scenes of the film before the ambush, we see video of “Preacher” Colson dipping best friend Tommy in a baptismal pool made of sandbags and water. Brandon and Michele seek out Preacher’s parents in Tennessee.
We also see Rico Rodriguez, played with a vibrant smile by Victor Rasuk, fooling around. He suffered burns and lost limbs. The pair visit him at a VA treatment facility.
A telling moment comes when King meets another former soldier on the “lay low” in a Memphis motel’s parking lot. The man, an African-American, likens the lawyer who helps AWOL soldiers across the Canadian border to an underground railroad figure. King, a Texan, considers him a coyote.
When we meet the attorney in a New York City restaurant, he’s more predator than savior.
Peirce has a sharp eye for rich details: the anxious chatter coming over the radio at a checkpoint; the dropped baton at a small-town parade; the faces of two military moms listening to drunken soldiers recount fantasies of retribution at a party that’s starting to go south.
But she never passes judgment on these soldiers.
Far from it: “Stop-Loss” is full of tender regard for them and their families.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
“Stop-Loss”
R for strong sexual content, nudity and language. 1 hour, 52 minutes. Directed by Kimberly Peirce. Written by Mark Richard and Peirce. Photography by Chris Menges. Starring Ryan Phillppe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ciarán Hinds, Timothy Olyphant, Victor Rasuk and Rob Brown. Opens today at area theaters.
