A: A soldier comes back from his second tour in Iraq, and right when he thinks he's getting out of the Army, he gets Stop-Lossed, which means that the government sends him back despite the fact that his contract is over, because in the fine print it says that they can do that during times of war.
Q: Who’s in the movie?
A: Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Abbie Cornish, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, Timothy Olyphant, Victor Rasuk, Rob Brown, Ciaran Hinds, Mamie Gummer, Linda Emond, Alex Frost
Q: Is this movie worth the price of admission?
A:
Go! While this is not an 'important' film, it deals with important issues, about how difficult it is for soldiers to recover from the atrocities they see at war, and how the government is taking advantage of the people who are nice enough to volunteer. This movie isn't brilliant, but it's an easy to swallow way to understand the complexities of the situation. While war is not the answer, it does make you wonder if we need to re-instate the draft.Q: Will this movie make me laugh?
A: If you find gunshots funny.
Q: Will this movie make me cry?
A: It definitely makes you feel hopeless and helpless.
Q: Will this movie be up for any awards?
A: Probably not any movie awards, but maybe a Nobel Peace Prize... What? Al Gore proved that movie makers are, like, totally eligible!
Q: How is the Acting?
A: Easy on the eyes... Although I sometimes had difficulty telling Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum apart when they are dressed the same and maneuvering in the shadows.
Q: How is the Directing?
A: Kimberly Peirce makes a lot of interesting choices, like inter-cutting one soldiers' personal video footage to advance the narrative of the film, and breaking out into music videos a couple of times, in an effort to stir emotions. And the final shot of the film almost says it all, but Timothy Olyphant, who plays their commanding officer is just a few levels short of the level of the emotion he needed to convey to drive home the point.
Q: How is the story/script?
A: It definitely makes you feel like the main character is between a rock and hard place with no way out, and it does a great job of helping us non-military-folk relate to what it must be like over there, but it takes a bit too long to get to the conflict, and the ending is only half satisfying-- which is mostly because the truth in this story is that there is no satisfying ending besides ending the war.
Q: Is there anything else worth mentioning about the movie?
A: Should we reinstate the draft? Should Stop-Loss be illegal? If it were, would we be forced not to fight, because we wouldn't have any fighters? Or is it the fault of those idiot soldiers for not reading the fine print when they signed up? (support our troops)... Talk amongst yourselves.
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