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Almost 10 years after bursting onto the feature film scene with BOYS DON’T CRY, Kimberly Peirce returns with an Iraq War drama that survives some plot contrivances with very well observed complex characters. As the title suggests, the film deals with the military policy of stop-loss, where soldiers can be reassigned to duty after their term of service is up. Nearly 81,000 Iraq War soldiers have been stop-lossed, which is viewed by some as a backdoor draft that pushes our stretched military too far.

Personalizing this idea, we meet a group of soldiers in Iraq. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the strong leader of the men, who is determined to do his duty to the best of his ability. Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum, STEP UP) is a tough soldier with a pretty girl named Michelle (Abbie Cornish, CANDY) back home. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, BRICK) is a troubled soldier who drowns his sorrow in liquor. Rico Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS) is a trash-talking private who finds the positive in every situation. After an ambush in Iraq that kills some of their squad and severely injures others, the men get a break back home in Texas. Brandon and Steve have finished their tours and look forward to starting their civilian life, however, the horrors of war have made the transition difficult. Then Brandon is stop-lossed. He strongly objects and ends up AWOL, fleeing to Washington D.C. to plead his case to a senator he knows.

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