Posted: 04/02/2008

Stop Loss

(2008)

by Hank Yuloff

Since September 2001, 630,000 of our best and brightest have been sent to Afghanistan and Iraq to either fight to protect democracy or fulfill the Bush administration’s dream of privatization of all government services and further concentrate what is left of our country’s wealth into the hands of the very few. Eighty-one thousand have been prevented from leaving the military when their military contracts expired. They have been “stop-lossed,” a loophole that allows the Bush government to keep them on the merry-go-round of never ending tours in the Iraq quagmire. Stop losses were originally used to allow the U.S. government to not lose talented soldiers during a time of war. Since Bush declared that his war was over (see Mission Accomplished banner on USS Lincoln, sitting within sight of San Diego, and Bush flying out to it in order to show his machismo), it is conceivable that stop-lossing our soldiers is yet another thing George W. Bush has lied about.

Stop Loss is about one of those 81,000. Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe from Flags of Our Fathers, Crash, Breach) has been awarded the Bronze star for valor and a purple heart. He has run over 100 missions in Iraq and is finally about to be released. When he is informed at his exit interview that he has been reassigned, something snaps. He says he hasn’t flipped. He is just “pissed off.” He thinks that running off to Washington, D.C., to speak with his senator will help. Talk to a Texas senator about getting out of the army? Come on, son. What in the name of Crawford do you think he is going to do for you?

I think that the movie was a bit simplistic in that within King’s squad we see a sample of everything that happens to our troops—one is horribly maimed but considers himself lucky to be alive, three die on what was to be their last mission, one is coerced into reenlisting with a promotion, one commits suicide, and all of the survivors suffer from various levels of post-traumatic stress and alcoholism. I know that writer/director Kimberly Peirce had to deal with a very complicated subject, but this was a glaring red light of amateurism. The scenes of battle are well shot and at no time do we ever get the feeling that the movie is unsupportive of those who would put themselves in harm’s way to defend our country. It is the system which has let them down.

By the way, the numbers I quoted in the first paragraph do not include the extra 30,000 which Bush put into Iraq as an escalation (okay, so he calls it a “surge”). The numbers of those troops who have been stop-lossed has not been revealed by the Bush Crime Family.

Hank Yuloff is a film critic in Los Angeles.

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