40 – Stop-Loss:

Second films are always funny. I know the saying is ‘first the worst, second the best’ but that’s not always true. How your second film turns out usually depends on how the first was. For me, my first film ever was Aaron. Just a ten-minute short with only two actors and one shoot day. It turned out okay and I was about 75% happy with it. For my second film High & Tight I felt I stepped it up and improved over a lot of the mistakes I made the first time around. In some ways I was glad that Aaron had a few things wrong with it, because it meant I didn’t have as big an act to follow. For some directors it’s the other way around.

Neil Blomkamp made a bang with his debut film District 9 – a sci-fi drama that also made a powerful statement about racism and immigration. It got a Best Picture nomination and half of Hollywood went on about how much they loved the film. His second Elysium was met with ‘meh’ responses and by the time he released his third Chappie the critical love had dried up. I personally loved Elysium and I’m sure I’ll love Chappie too, but you can see what happens when a first-time director opens with a bang and then has to follow it with another.

Texan director Kimberly Peirce made huge waves in 1999 with her directorial debut Boys Don’t Cry. This drama about a transgender man in Nebraska turned the unknown Hilary Swank into a star with an Oscar win. The film made five times its budget back and was one of the most talked about things of the year. So when Kimberly started on her second film – a surprising six years later – people were still talking about it. What would her second be about?

In 2005 America was right in the middle of the Iraq War. Kimberly’s brother was among many young people who enlisted in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Desperate to understand why they would do such a thing, she started out with the hopes of making a documentary. The initial idea was that she’d give cameras to soldiers in Iraq so they could film their experiences. Just as she was about to get funding for it, she changed her mind and decided to turn the answers she’d gotten from soldiers into a feature film instead. It got backing from an unconventional source.

Much like Bandslam we are transported to the late 2000s by the use of digital cameras to record a scrapbook montage. We meet the boys of Shadow C, who are serving in Iraq. They’re clearly a tight-knit group – since in between checking cars for explosives they ogle one sergeant’s naughty pictures of his fiance. It’s back to work pretty quickly, as they have to pursue a hostile. Unfortunately they go right into an ambush, during which two soldiers die and a third gets badly burned. It’s pretty interesting the way Kimberly Peirce presents this scene.

This is the film’s only action scene – and it’s straightforward drama from here on – but even so it’s very important in putting the audience in the perspective of these soldiers. They say in film that less is usually more, but this is that exception where showing the horror works better than implying it. A major theme of this movie is that the civilians can’t relate to what the soldiers have been through – so giving the audience this information puts us on the soldiers’ side. We know what they’ve seen, while their families don’t. More superficially, plenty of moviegoers enjoyed the scene so much, they said they were surprised that a woman directed the film.

After the battle is over, we get a more sombre scrapbook montage as a tribute to some of the soldiers that were killed. The dates of birth are shown, and they’re all early twenties. After this is done, we’re properly introduced to our protagonists.

Sgt Brandon King is a Texan boy, born and raised. But he’s played by 90s pretty boy Ryan Phillippe. These days his best remembered roles are I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions – but in the 2000s he did attempt to shake off his status as a teen star. Among the films he appeared in – Gosford Park, Flags of Our Fathers and Crash (while a critical punching bag these days it was an Oscar winner when it came out). He was never quite able to translate it to mainstream cred as a serious actor but he damn sure tried. His work in Gosford was fine, if a little un-challenging. Here?

“For me, it was one of the most colorful parts I’ve ever had – the range of emotions and situations this character goes through…that’s why I wanted to do it really….This is the kind of movie that does kind of stay with you and you think about after you see it…That’s the kind of thing I like to make.”

There is the belief among internet folk that actors who get famous for their looks are all brainless and have nothing to offer the world besides eye candy. While that is true for some of them, a lot of them get into the game first and foremost because they love acting. One of the biggest sex symbols ever Marilyn Monroe insisted on studying drama and was in fact much smarter than people gave her credit for (the dumb blonde persona you saw in her films was – surprise surprise – acting).

You wouldn’t expect beauty to be an obstacle in the film industry, but the really gritty meaty roles that are an actor’s dream tend to go to what I like to call a ‘perfect seven’. Good looking yes but not too much so. Good looking in a ‘flawed, accessible way’ so they can be attractive but still relatable. Essentially it tricks the audience into thinking they’re seeing inner beauty. And those actors who hit the 8-10 ratings of hotness have to make do with the more commercial films that need pretty faces to sell tickets – Megan Fox had to reconcile with Michael Bay and continue playing the ‘hot chick’ instead of the meatier parts she wanted so she could provide for her children. With MTV backing Stop-Loss, it had the distinction of being a gritty indie film dolled up to look like a commercial release. So in came the young studs to draw in the teens and young adults. Kimberly Peirce did not want Ryan in the lead role at all.

Once it became clear that she wasn’t getting a different lead actor and after a couple of meetings with him, she came around. Let’s not forget that the lead of her previous film’s most notable credit was friggin Beverly Hills 90210. Ryan’s performance here is a lot like Matthew Lillard’s in Scream. The choice is a risky one and 9 times out of 10 it would bomb. But his performance is so raw and passionate that it keeps me engaged.

Speaking of engagements, Brandon’s best friend and fellow sergeant Steve Shriver is to be married. Who is Steve played by?

Chan the Man, you’re here as well. I noted back in my Jupiter Ascending review that Channing Tatum managed to deliver a good performance in a…well read the review. Here he is in a serious movie one year before GI Joe: Rise of Cobra meant he wouldn’t be doing any of those until Foxcatcher came along. This wouldn’t be my favourite of Channing’s performances (wait until we’re higher on the list) but he does some good work here. You can tell he was still new to acting, but the potential is there. On the IMDB boards for when this film was released, there was even a lengthy thread calling for Channing to get an Oscar nomination.

Brandon gives an emotional speech as he’s welcomed home, but the town festival he’s at has an uncomfortable effect on him. Despite the American flags, the national anthem playing, local patriotism running wild and a senator offering Brandon help if he ever needs it (remember that) – the whole thing is punctuated with Sgt King looking uneasy.

That’s his fiance Michelle, played by Australian actress Abbie Cornish. At this point you probably know her as ‘that girl from that thing’ (most likely Limitless or Sucker Punch). She and Ryan Philippe were dating at the time, which explains the chemistry between Michelle and Brandon. They’re childhood friends, and so Brandon takes the reins to dance with her when Steve is too drunk to later. We also meet another young soldier called Tommy Burgess.

Joseph Gordon Levitt, also using this movie to try and escape the teen heartthrob curse. It’s hard for some of us to remember a point in time where he was best known for tween girls sighing over him in Third Rock From The Sun and Ten Things I Hate About You. This was among many darker roles he took to establish cred as a serious actor, and right before his career resurrection in the early 2010s. It’s this film and Looper – which I saw quite close to each other – that turned him into one of my favourite actors. He proves it in this scene here, where he punches a guy for hitting on his wife and yet remains likable. Since the soldier killed in the opening battle was his best friend.

Understandably the locals are uncomfortable hearing about people who have died in the war. They’re fine with sending their young men and women overseas to blow things up – as long as they don’t have to hear about the specifics. Brandon leaves the party early and packs his stuff to get ready to return to civilian life. But he gets a call from Michelle and has to go over to her house. It turns out Steve has gotten the kind of drunk where he now believes he’s back in Iraq and is digging a foxhole in his front garden. Whenever I mention Stop-Loss to a female, this scene is usually the one they remember for some reason…

MTV, remember? Anyway Michelle claims he got a bit violent and started the non-fun kind of roleplaying in the house. They’re not the only couple having problems, as an even drunker Tommy crashes his car outside the house with the news that his wife Jeannie threw him out.

Now Jeannie is kind of a missed opportunity in the film that otherwise has some pretty good characterization. She has about two lines in the scene that properly introduces her and most of the drama between her and Tommy happens off-screen. I’m not sure if we’re even supposed to sympathise with her. Kimberly Peirce seems to be implying that Jeannie couldn’t handle Tommy’s issues and the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach is her way of coping. It serves to make her a foil to Michelle – who at least attempts to help her man through his issues. That kind of conflict is a great source of drama, but the majority of it is guesswork on the part of the audience. There is a scene where Jeannie tells Michelle that Tommy came to her work drunk – but that’s over the phone and the line is easy to miss. I feel like there’s a really deep conflicted character there on paper who got stuck in the disposable wife pigeonhole.

Brandon tries his best to keep his men sane, especially reminding Tommy that he’s got a thin line to tread. But his own sanity is put to the test when he gets told he’s to report back to Iraq. He thought he was getting out but he’s been stop-lossed.

So the stop-loss policy is a loophole in a soldier’s contract that allows the army to extend their service – whether they like it or not. It first started getting used during the Vietnam War, and Kimberly Peirce learned about it while doing research. The soldiers do sign their contract knowing about it, so Brandon can’t have been 100% surprised. He is 100% pissed off and gives his Lieutenant Colonel (Timothy Olyphant in a great one scene wonder role) a piece of his mind.

Seriously, Ryan Phillippe acts his ass off in this scene. This is not a lesser actor just getting angry on camera. This is a man who has done his time, followed every order given to him and maintained faith in the chain of command every step of the way – and in the course of two minutes discovers that to the system he’s nothing more than a pig to be fattened up and slaughtered along with hundreds of others. On my first watch I knew I wanted to use this scene as an audition piece after about thirty seconds….

My shameless plugging is through, and so is Brandon’s playing by the rules. As he’s getting taken to the stockade for speaking out of turn, he beats up both his guards and flees the base. By the time he gets home, the police already know he’s gone AWOL. He remembers the senator who promised he’d help if he ever needed a favour – so Michelle says she’ll drive him to DC to keep suspicion off his parents.

On the ride there, Michelle remarks that Steve doesn’t talk much about Iraq. You get an indication why once they stop at a motel. Brandon sees a towel in the pool and gets triggered – thinking it’s a drowning soldier. So he dives in to perform a rescue.

Things aren’t looking too good the next morning – as Tommy apparently drove his car drunk into Jeannie’s workplace. While he’s being reprimanded, Steve phones Brandon to remind him that as the squad leader HE should be handling this. Brandon however still wants to go to DC. He just decides to take a detour.

Remember the soldier that was killed in the opening battle? A man called Preacher – who was Tommy’s best friend? Brandon visits his family. While paying his respects, they also reveal he too was stop-lossed. His brother lets slip that there are some local soldiers preparing a lawsuit. But as a fun fact, Preacher’s mother is played by Laurie Metcalf. One of this year’s Best Actress nominees.

When they get back to the car, they find it’s been broken into. Brandon spots the thieves and chases them down. And despite it being a three-on-one deal, Brandon gets the upper hand and starts talking trash like he’s a late 90s pro wrestler. But it’s Michelle who diffuses the situation – and by now she can probably add ‘great at dealing with aggressive meatheads’ as a skill on her resume. On the first watch this is a pretty tense scene, because you know that all hope is lost for Brandon as soon as he shoots one of these carjackers. And likewise it’s a real relief when Michelle gets control of the gun.

At their next motel, Brandon encounters another stop-lossed soldier who’s laying low with his family. The proposed lawsuit isn’t much of an option – as he’s been on the run for fourteen months. His destination is Canada, and he gives Brandon a number just in case. Kimberly Peirce encountered a lot of cases like this when doing research for the film. She estimated that between 200 and 300 soldiers fled to Canada, with help from under the table people. At the time of interviewing, no one had been deported so it was up in the air whether they’d go to jail or back to Iraq. It looks like that’s the choice for Brandon when Steve shows up at the motel the next morning.

Steve appears to have cut a deal with Boot – Brandon can turn himself in within 14 hours and all charges will be dropped. How did Steve get such a sweet deal? By re-enlisting and joining sniper school (a previous scene had shown him to be pretty good with the rifle). He seems to think it’s better for his future, but Michelle calls him out on putting off their wedding yet again. It’s the last straw for her and she breaks off the engagement. Steve also reveals that Boot called the senator, so Brandon has no chance now. With both his and Michelle’s plans royally f’d up now, there’s just one thing left for them to do.

Well actually there are several things they have to do but that takes priority. Another character whose drinking is taking priority is Tommy. Apparently Jeannie has now slapped him with a restraining order, so a night on the booze it is. After he takes a shot at Steve for his relationship failing, he takes a shot at a jewelry store window. Sweet Jesus Joseph Gordon Levitt is fantastic in this scene. He goes from hatred at the world to hatred at himself in the most striking way.

It’s now time for Brandon to visit a soldier who was injured in the opening battle – a young man called Rico who had his face burned, lost his sight and is missing an arm. More importantly it’s now time to give the spotlight to an actor called Victor Rasuk. He’s an actor I’ve only seen in this, and he’s only in this one sequence (aside from brief appearances in the home movies and opening battle). And in doing research I checked out his filmography and was relieved to see that he’s still acting and is appearing in good stuff – Godzilla, How To Make It In America, Stalker (and all three Fifty Shades movies which I’m sure are good paydays). In doing his own research, Victor visited various soldiers who had been injured on duty. Expecting them to be bitter about their situation, he found most of them to be quite positive and trying to look on the bright side. As a result Rico provides some much needed light to such a heavy story.

There is one part to this scene that I don’t quite get. Rico teases Brandon about bringing Michelle along – making a joke that he stole Steve’s girl. Now the rest of the movie has avoided pairing Brandon with Michelle, and Kimberly Peirce stated that the two of them are just good friends. And in every scene except this, that’s very clear. Sure it makes sense that Rico would joke about it – but it doesn’t make sense to have Brandon get a little tongue-tied when the subject is brought up. It’s not helped by the chemistry between the two actors – and Abbie Cornish honestly has more there than she does with Channing Tatum. The following scene is another example – where it’s Michelle that Brandon opens up to about the horrors he experienced in Iraq. Accompanied by some great lighting and framing by the way.

Brandon reveals that in the opening battle, he had to kill an armed civilian who had his young son with him. So it’s not surprising that he makes a call to ‘the guy’, and they trade the car for a motorcycle and $1000 to pay for Brandon’s new identity. We also check back in with the boys back home, where it turns out that Tommy has been given a ‘Bad Conduct Discharge’.

Brandon and Michelle meet with the guy who has the fake ID, and he reminds us that once Brandon heads to Canada there is literally no coming back. Brandon pays the money and prepares to say his goodbyes. But we’re headed into the third act, and in addition to the soldier who’s trying to flee the country – we also have one who got dumped by his fiancee and another who also got dumped and discharged in the same week. So…

It’s Tommy who shot himself. Despite being discharged, he’s given a funeral with full military honors. Michelle attends but Brandon stays in hiding until after it’s over. Steve stays behind and the two get into a bit of a fist fight. Steve’s punches are being thrown because Brandon left his men high and dry – and Tommy likely would still be alive if he hadn’t. Brandon’s throwing his because he thinks Steve volunteering to go back is just wasting his life, since he’s sure to get killed. The fighting soon morphs into crying on Steve’s part. It’s not quite as intense as a certain breakdown in Foxcatcher but on Channing’s part it was definitely a start.

Brandon finally unloads with what he has been thinking. It’s not just him not wanting to go back to Iraq. That “box inside your head” where he’s been suppressing all the horrors he went through over there is finally at breaking point. Over in Iraq he never had time to think. He had to get his men out safely, and no guarantee that he would be successful. Quite possibly the only thing that kept him falling apart after their last mission was knowing that it would soon be over and he could go home. So when that chance is going to be denied to him – and he’ll have to risk losing even more people and seeing countless more atrocities – THAT is why he ran.

Ryan Phillippe hits every point in this scene and leaves me with a really wowing feeling. As I said earlier, his performance is far from safe. Just like Faye Dunaway’s in Mommie Dearest, it’s incredibly raw and – out of context it could be something to laugh at. Even with the thick Texan accent and the loud shouting, it feels very realistic and the scene is freakishly effective.

Despite Steve insisting that they would have lost a lot more if Brandon hadn’t been there, he’s still ready to go through with his fleeing across the border plan. So he says his goodbyes to his family. It’s a mostly silent scene and all the more powerful for it. His father is played by veteran Irish actor Ciaran Hinds who almost feels a bit wasted here, given how he helps elevate this scene to greatness.

A little sequence of Brandon solemnly packing up Tommy’s uniform and coffee pot as a keepsake is like a dagger in the heart, as is the following bit of him standing a few feet away from the Mexico border with his mother and Michelle. We cut to a month later where a busload of soldiers are heading off to Iraq. Among them are Rico and Steve’s brothers who have now enlisted (and apparently managed to pass boot camp in less than a month). And we see who their sergeant is…

If Stop-Loss had been the only movie of its kind, I’m pretty sure we’d have had a hit on our hands. But it was the latest in a series about the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Brian DePalma’s Redacted was divisively received by critics and grossed an embarrassing $782k at the Box Office. Robert Redford directed Lions For Lambs featuring an impressive cast (including Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep) and made its money back, but was trashed by critics. Meryl Streep starred in another – Rendition – that likewise didn’t impress critics and only broke even at the Box Office. A Val Kilmer fronted thriller called Conspiracy was a complete disaster. A film about a female soldier – Grace Is Gone – fared better with critics but flopped with even just a $3 million budget to recoup. In The Valley of Elah was the most successful of the bunch, with favorable reviews and making a little over its budget – but it was clear that audiences did not want to keep seeing Iraq War movies.

Stop-Loss got some better reviews than a lot of the others – although critics were getting tired of being told how damaged soldiers were. Despite MTV’s involvement, it only made half its budget back. It seemed to mark the end of Ryan Phillippe’s time as a leading man. Despite appearing in a hit like The Lincoln Lawyer a lot of his filmography after this includes direct-to-video work. He doesn’t seem to mind – as raising his children and charity work seem to be his priority. The 2010s were very kind to Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon Levitt – both of whom broke through into the mainstream and enjoyed lots of success. Both are two of my favorites and this film is a good reason why. For me this is the definitive Iraq war story – tackling the subject matter with some juicy characterization that makes it feel almost like The Best Years of Our Lives for the 21st Century. Although Kimberly Peirce doesn’t generate the same buzz as she did back in the late 90s and early 2000s – her next film, a remake of Carrie, was met with ‘meh’ reactions – she’s a director I’ll continue to admire for many years to come.

You know that box inside your head, where you put all the grades you can’t deal with? Mine are spilling out.

*Story? As I said earlier, it’s very raw and goes off on a bit of a tangent. On paper it doesn’t look like it fits – PTSD drama merged with a thriller-like plot of trying to flee the country – but Kimberly Peirce’s direction pulls it off. The story’s increasing stakes give the audience a sense of the hopelessness of Brandon’s situation. B

*Characters? A character driven war film where all the soldiers are instantly recognisable and come with their own identities (*cough* We Were Soldiers). Truth be told, some characters like Jeannie and Brandon’s parents could have done with more screentime. Michelle is a great example of how introducing a character as ‘X’s girl’ does not automatically make them boring or dull. A-

*Performances? As I’ve said many times, very raw and a little out there – but the unsafe things about them make them very engaging. Ryan Phillippe owns the screen, Channing Tatum does a pretty good job and Joseph Gordon Levitt makes me want to use the word ‘amazeballs’. The movie is full of one scene wonders in Victor Rasuk, Ciaran Hinds, Timothy Olyphant, and Mamie Gummer. A-

*Visuals? The film has some fantastic lighting and framing. I loved the look of Boys Don’t Cry but Kimberly Peirce upped her game visually here. They’re very understated in parts but the shots and colours just create something great. A

Anything Else? N/A

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