The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/28/08 Section: Variety

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Hollywood's new favorite punching bag, the Iraq War, is back yet again with "Stop-Loss," an uneven but ultimately touching drama that sheds light on a towering back door draft.

Upon returning from Iraq, Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) longs for the ordinary Texas life but learns he is subject to the stop-loss policy - retention of soldiers beyond their contractual term of service.

His three options: prison, desertion to Toronto or the looming beaches of Iraq.

More than 80,000 American troops have been stop-lossed in this war, according to the film. Phillippe carries their torch well, even if his Texas drawl is a bit much. Sure, he may be the model movie soldier, but his angst is rarely preachy and his eyes house a despair that is too often voiceless.

The shortfall of the recent lot of anti-war films ("In the Valley of Elah" and "Lions for Lambs") is their bullheadish and simplistic maneuvering through a layered and tragic war.

Regardless of politics - more specifically, reasons for occupation - we can all agree (I hope) the invasion ignited a whirlpool of hostility.

Previous efforts exploited this sentiment, focusing on the anti-war message rather than soldiers on the ground.

"Stop-Loss" avoids these hazards for the most part.

Back from a nine-year hiatus, director Kimberly Peirce shows flashes of the tenderness that catapulted her to the "it list" with her feature debut, "Boys Don't Cry."

The film works best in its quieter moments - the nuanced conversations between Texas soldiers and best friends, puppets in a game where their fates are decided by bigwigs behind desks in air-conditioned rooms.

At times, the film seems unsure of the transcendence of such scenes, relying on lazy musical montages to portray that American, "hell yeah" moxie to the MTV generation (note: shockingly, MTV is one of the distributors).

Don't overlook the criminally under-used Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("Mysterious Skin"), who proves Texas smalltown life can be more tormenting than the desert.

In its initial passages, post-traumatic stress triggers lurk around each shady corner and appear more like genre conventions than inner demons for the soldiers back at home.

Nonetheless, such scenes fade during the film's concluding 30 minutes, which are poignant, emotionally devastating and perhaps for the first time in the assembly line of Iraq movies - real.

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