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Feature films about the ongoing Iraq War continue to slink in and out of theaters without making much of an impact with the general public. While their individual quality varies, it would seem that people aren’t yet ready to embrace a movie about a conflict that’s still playing itself out in the headlines. Obvious comparisons have been made between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War; but, Hollywood would do well to note that the bulk of the best movies about Vietnam were released well after the war had ended. Films like Apocalypse Now and Coming Home didn’t come out until the late 1970s and high-profile gems like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket followed suit nearly a decade later.

I have no doubt there will be some great films made about the United States’ involvement in Iraq someday in the not too distant future. Sadly, despite a promising premise, Stop-Loss is not one of them. I had high hopes for the film given it marked the long-overdue return of director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) and it boasted a fine cast led by Ryan Phillippe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It also seemed to have a great hook in attempting to shed a light on the little-known practice of automatically re-enlisting soldiers who had already served out their tour of duty – hence, the titular term stop-loss. But the film suffers from a lack of cohesion and severe lapses in logic that left me shaking my head in disbelief.

Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) and his squad find themselves caught in an ambush in Iraq during the film’s harrowing opening scenes, resulting in one man getting killed and another seriously injured. It’s a brave and unblinking sequence that serves to establish how brutal and unpredictable war can be. Despite the death of one and the maiming of another member of his squad, Sergeant King remains upbeat since his tour is coming to an end. He heads home to Texas for a weekend celebration during which he will receive medals for his service. But that weekend celebration sours when his friends and fellow soldiers find it difficult to adjust to civilian life. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has anger issues and problems with the bottle, while Sergeant Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum) is still in combat mode and starts digging a foxhole in his front yard.

It’s during this celebratory weekend home that the movie veered completely off the rails for me. Having been home for just hours, it seems every character suddenly has a ready-made neurosis or convenient addiction to capitalize on and within the span of just three days they manage to do enough damage to warrant getting jailed for drinking and driving and see the breakup of two long-term relationships. As the problem weekend winds down, Sergeant King reports back to his superiors only to learn of his stop-loss status; he will be required to report back for duty in Iraq at the end of the month. His knee-jerk reaction is to panic, resulting in his going AWOL. With his close friend Michelle (Abbie Cornish) by his side, King decides he’s going to head straight to Washington, DC to seek help from his senator who presented him with his service medals.

The ensuing road trip, however, seems to have more stops than those taken along the yellow brick road. I couldn’t understand why someone who was on the lam and had just gone AWOL inexplicably would take the time to stop to see the family of his dead squad mate, pay a visit to the soldier wounded in that Iraq ambush, lounge around a couple of hotel pools, and then make a detour to New York to meet with a seedy lawyer about relocating to Canada with a new identity. What’s more frustrating is none of these detours offer any resolution or result and they’re dropped when Sergeant King ultimately returns to Texas to attend the funeral of another friend and fellow soldier who committed suicide.

Director Peirce and co-writer Mark Richard attempt to sandwich in so much plot that the movie feels overstuffed and messy, with little resolution to the many subplots they create. I suppose this could be attributed to the fact that the returning soldiers are, in fact, confused and disoriented by their reintegration into society, but a lot of the inconsistencies and lapses in logic take place while Sergeant King is traveling with Michelle. She, by the way, was engaged to his best friend Sergeant Shriver but then broke it off when he informed her he had plans to voluntarily re-enlist. All of the major plot points feel forced and contrived and there’s a laughably bad bit of overacting courtesy of Phillippe and Tatum at the friend’s funeral; they beat each other up and yell about how confusing the last few days have been. Ironically enough, by that point I felt just as dazed and confused as they were.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s 1.85:1 aspect ratio is presented in a decent but unremarkable anamorphic transfer that looks a bit flat and desaturated. A handheld approach was employed to give the film more of a realistic video look, so the compositions are less steady and more kinetic and show some evidence of blurring and softness when panning quickly from side to side. The movie’s color scheme is a bit drab and monochromatic by design, and although color levels are good, it’s far from a vibrant or colorful transfer. While some of the initial celebratory scenes, like the soldiers’ welcome-home parade and a big party held in their honor in a Texas dance hall that night, offer a little more visual flair than the combat scenes and Sergeant King’s cross-country road trip, the movie remains pretty pedestrian in terms of sets and production design. Flesh tones looked natural and nicely-rendered, but I did notice some annoying compression artifacts and even more egregious macroblocking and digital breakup that may have been the result of a faulty disc pressing. Black levels are pretty good for a standard definition transfer and I didn’t see any signs of edge halos or digital tweaking. Overall, a serviceable but flawed video presentation.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The compressed Dolby Digital 5.1 track fares much better than its video counterpart. It actually does most of its heavy lifting during the initial ambush sequence in Iraq where the pinging bullets fired by Sergeant King’s squad move across the front and rear channels and the bombastic explosions from rocket propelled grenades jumpstart the subwoofer. For the bulk of the movie’s runtime, the 5.1 track provides a nice omnidirectional and enveloping aural experience with a good bottom end and well-placed stereo and discrete surround cues. Although a bit overdone in spots, John Powell’s original score emanates from the front channels with some ambient bleed-through to the rears. Dialogue remains crisp and clear through the center channel while the surrounds provide both ambient background noise and echo from the front and center channels. Overall, a good audio presentation.

The optional subtitles are in English, French, and Spanish.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The DVD’s generous collection of bonus material begins with a feature-length running commentary track by director/co-writer Kimberly Peirce and co-writer Mark Richard. Both have a personable and easy rapport and explain how the project went through multiple writes and rewrites. It took some 65 draft versions of the script to get it down to a final shooting script. Richard said the most important goal for him was to make the movie as authentic as possible, and he worked with Peirce to research how the soldiers felt about their experience in Iraq and, more importantly, when they first returned home. Peirce offers some interesting insight into the shoot and how she resisted using a lot of tripod or dolly shots, instead replicating the handheld look of the soldiers’ amateur videos she viewed from Iraq. She also discusses some of her personal experiences in having her brother serve in Iraq and how her mother felt after he finally returned home. The commentary remains more about the genesis of the project and the experience of working with the cast and crew and less about the technical aspects of the production.

The DVD includes a couple of behind-the-scenes featurettes beginning with The Making of Stop-Loss (20:57), a standard EPK which offers interviews and comments from the various cast and crew members. The bulk of the time is spent with director Kimberly Peirce who explains how she was first inspired to make the movie after her younger brother enlisted in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. That spawned her own curiosity about the so-called stop-loss phenomena and how many of the soldiers were choosing to go AWOL rather than going back for a second and third tour of duty. Peirce also said the visual look of the film was mostly inspired by many amateur videos shot by actual soldiers serving in Iraq. A Day in Boot Camp (10:06) featurette is a look at the intense training given to the cast members by Military Advisor James Dever, who literally took them through the rigorous routine of physical fitness and drills like those given to real U.S. Army recruits.

A collection of eleven deleted scenes, which can be viewed with or without commentary by director Kimberly Peirce, includes Hometown Cooking (2:36), Roy King and Son (2:16), Leaving the Base (1:05), Need a Ride to Austin (1:36), Dropping Shorty Off (1:03), Michelle Offers to Drive (1:38), Veteran’s Support Network (2:18), Check Out (0:36), D.C. Visit (1:08), Senator Worrell (2:12), and Beach (2:01). Most of these scenes are interesting but ultimately unnecessary, with the exception of D.C. Visit and Senator Worrell, both of which should have been retained to show how Sergeant King did finally make it to Washington, only to be rejected in person by the senator. This was quickly explained away by a brief phone call in the final film.

The DVD also includes previews for J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie and Iron Man, along with the original theatrical trailers for Rolling Stones: Shine a Light, American Teen, and The Ruins.

The 111-minute film is organized into seventeen chapters.

Exclusive DVD-ROM Features: What Happens When You Pop The Disc Into Your PC?

There are no DVD-ROM Features on this disc.

Final Thoughts