Stop-Loss (2008)

★ 6.1 1h 53m 271 votes IMDb

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

Stop-Loss

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Cast

Ryan Phillippe
Ryan Phillippe as Brandon King Age 51 · New Castle, Delaware, USA Matthew Ryan Phillippe (/ˈfɪlɪpi/; born September 10, 1974) is an American actor. After appearing as Billy Douglas on the soap opera One Life to Live (1992–1993) and making his feature film debut in C...
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish as Michelle Age 43 · Lochinvar, New South Wales, Australia Abigail "Abbie" Cornish (born 7 August 1982) is an Australian actress. Cornish is best known for her film roles as Heidi in Somersault (2004), Fanny Brawne in Bright Star (2009), Sweet Pea in Sucker P...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tommy Burgess Age 45 · Los Angeles, California, USA Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt (born February 17, 1981) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received various accolades, including nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Pi...
Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum as Steve Shriver Age 45 · Cullman, Alabama, USA Channing Matthew Tatum (born April 26, 1980) is an American actor and producer. He made his film debut in the drama Coach Carter (2005) and had his breakthrough with the sports comedy film She's the M...
Josef Sommer
Josef Sommer as Senator Orton Worrell Age 91 · Greifswald, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany Maximilian Josef Sommer (born June 26, 1934) is a German-American retired stage, television, and film actor. His best known roles are as The President in X-Men: The Last Stand, Senator Jessup in The S...
Timothy Olyphant
Timothy Olyphant as Lieutenant Colonel Boot Miller Age 57 · Honolulu, Hawaii, USA Timothy David Olyphant (/ˈɒlɪfənt/ OL-ih-fənt; born May 20, 1968) is an American actor. He made his acting debut at an off-Broadway theatre in 1995 in The Monogamist, won the Theatre World Award for h...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 6.5/10 Mar 07, 2015
Extended Enlistment.

Kimberley Peirce’s (Boys Don’t Cry) movie proved to be controversial in military circles. The story is about the stop-loss procedure used by the American military, a kind of small print tactic that can extend a soldiers service should their country deem it so. Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) returns home from the Gulf Wars with his mentally scarred pals fully expecting to get back to a domestic life without blood and brains dominating his personal landscape. Yet he is called back in for another tour of Iraq under the stop-loss procedure, something he rebels against and goes AWOL. He has done two tours already, surely he has earned his retirement?

It starts off in electrified fashion, the horrors of the war in Iraq bursting from the screen as a firefight ensues, character traits are introduced to us, we are left in no doubt that the soldiers at the end of this tour of duty have seen it all. Pic then settles into a sort of cross between a road movie and a PTSD portrait awash with emotional strangulation. Peirce and her co-writer Mark Richard have honourable intentions, but too much is given over to stereotyping, of stock clichés and the bold signposting of character’s futures. They carefully paint King as a model soldier, this is definitely not about cowardice, but come the cop-out finale it’s evident that the narrative suffers glaring inconsistencies and confused messaging.

On the bonus side is the performances of the youthful cast, where some fluctuating accents aside, Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish are superb, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes a weakly written part crackle with pained emotion. Of the elders, most are underwritten, which is a shame when you got the likes of Ciaran Hinds in the cast. We are left as a whole with a film that is as uneven as a dusty road in Tikrit, not only in narrative structure, but also in actual facts as regards the procedures of the American military, both on the written documents and execution of duty in battle.

It was a flop at the American box-office and it’s not hard to see why, but it still has merits. Even as the familiarity tries to breed contempt, the anguished reality of a soldiers life, during tours and post service time, strikes a mightily distressing chord. 6.5/10

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