Stop-Loss (film)
Encyclopedia
Stop-Loss is a 2008 American drama film
directed by Kimberly Peirce
and starring Ryan Phillippe
, Channing Tatum
, Abbie Cornish
and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures
and produced by MTV Films
.
) leads a squad stationed in Tikrit
during the Iraq War. While on duty at a checkpoint, the squad hears gunshots, after which a car speeds past filled with insurgents, one of whom fires an AK-47 at them. King's men jump into their Humvees and follow the insurgents, following them into an alley. When the soldiers get out of their vehicles, the Iraqis shoot at them from rooftops. As the firefight ensues, an RPG is discharged, destroying one of the humvees, while killing three soldiers inside and wounding Pvt.Rodriguez. When King enters a house to help injured squad member Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum
), he discovers that he had accidentally killed several Iraqi civilians by throwing a grenade.
Upon returning to their Texas
hometown, Brandon and longtime friend Steve Shriver are decorated with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in a solemn ceremony. A U.S. Senator takes Brandon aside after the ceremony and offers to help Brandon in anyway he can. That night, Steve shows the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. He gets drunk and digs a foxhole in his front yard, and strikes his fiancee Michelle (Abbie Cornish
). When Brandon comes over to check on Steve, he is unable to get through to him. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt
), a fellow squad member, drives over drunk after his wife has kicked him out.
The next day, Brandon suggests that they all go to the "ranch", a small forest cabin located outside of town. The men pass the time by drinking and watching Tommy shoot his wedding gifts, after their friend Shorty reads the cards. Upon hearing the commotion, a hungover Steve awakens and literally shoots the cards so that everyone will be quiet. The next day King, Tommy and Steve report to their military base. When Brandon arrives expecting to be discharged, he is unexpectedly ordered back to active duty in Iraq
, based on the military's controversial stop-loss policy
. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL, becoming a deserter.
Michelle sympathizes with Brandon's refusal and offers to travel with Steve to Washington, D.C. to see the Senator who offered to help Brandon out earlier. During a multi-day drive to Washington, D.C., Brandon calls the Senator's office and is told that because he is now a fugitive, the Senator is not interested in seeing him. Brandon and Michelle also visit the family of Paul "Preacher" Colson, one of the three soldiers under Brandon's command killed in the alley ambush and encounter another AWOL soldier who recommends a lawyer to help arrange forged discharge documents and the establishment of a new identity in Canada. They also visit Rico Rodriguez, a soldier who was blinded
, lost his right arm and leg, and burned in the face while saving Tommy from a rocket propelled grenade
. After Michelle phones Steve to tell him of their exact location, he arrives in uniform to take Brandon back, and tells Michelle he has volunteered to return to Iraq. Brandon refuses to return and Michelle is furious with Steve for re-enlisting and ends their relationship. They finally make it to New York City and meet with the lawyer who gives Brandon forged papers which would allow him to flee to Canada in exchange for payment of $1000. After a depressed
Burgess commits suicide
, Brandon returns to visit Burgess's grave immediately after the funeral, only to end up in a dispute with Steve after his funeral.
Brandon, his mother and Michelle drive to the Mexican border, but Brandon ultimately decides not to abandon everything that he has ever known. While about to cross the border, he tells his mother and Michelle that if he goes to Mexico he'll never really be able to leave the War behind him. The final scene depicts a busload of soldiers, including Brandon and Steve, returning to war.
began in August 2006 in Morocco
and various locations in Texas — Austin
, Lockhart
, San Antonio and Uhland
. However, the film was not released until March 28, 2008.
was released on July 8, 2008. The DVD includes an audio commentary
by director Kimberly Peirce and co-writer Mark Richard, 2 featurettes, and 11 deleted scene
s.
reported that 65% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 136 reviews, with the consensus "Stop-Loss is sincere and complex, and features strong performances, even if it tries to cover too much ground." Metacritic
reported the film had an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.
James Berardinelli
described the film as one in a line of "preachy movies about the war in Iraq" and described it as "simplistic and uninteresting", citing it as no more effective than movies by others (including Robert Redford
, Brian De Palma
, Gavin Hood
, and Paul Haggis
) who preceded Kimberly Peirce in attempting to tell a story with the "basic premise" that "War is hell, the U.S. government is deceitful, and soldiers are being irrevocably damaged." Peter Travers noted in his review of the film that several Iraq War movies had failed the year before, ("Box-office casualties last year include Lions for Lambs
, Rendition
, Redacted
, Grace Is Gone
, and the unfairly scorned In the Valley of Elah
") and felt that Stop Loss "touches greatness" despite what he called "a curse hanging over it" and "has the juice to break the jinx."
. In its opening weekend, it grossed a mere $4.5 million in 1,291 theaters in the United States
and Canada
, ranking #8 at the box office. As of June 17, 2008, it has grossed a total of $10.9 million in the U.S. and Canada and over $16,000 in other territories. The film had an estimated budget of $25 million and only grossed $11 million worldwide, less than half of its budget.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Kimberly Peirce
Kimberly Peirce
Kimberly Peirce is an American feature film director, notable for her debut feature film, Boys Don't Cry . Her second feature, Stop-Loss, was released by Paramount Pictures in 2008.- Early life and career :...
and starring Ryan Phillippe
Ryan Phillippe
Matthew Ryan Phillippe , better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54...
, Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum
Channing Matthew Tatum is an American actor and film producer. He began his career as a fashion model and appearing in television commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew before turning to film roles...
, Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
and Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor whose career as both a child and adult has included television series and theatrical films....
. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and produced by MTV Films
MTV Films
MTV Films is the motion picture production arm of cable channel MTV. Founded in 1996, it has produced films based on MTV programs such as Beavis and Butt-head Do America and Jackass: The Movie, as well as other adaptations and original projects. Its films are released by fellow Viacom division...
.
Plot
Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King (Ryan PhillippeRyan Phillippe
Matthew Ryan Phillippe , better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54...
) leads a squad stationed in Tikrit
Tikrit
Tikrit is a town in Iraq, located 140 km northwest of Baghdad on the Tigris river . The town, with an estimated population in 2002 of about 260,000 is the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate.-Ancient times:...
during the Iraq War. While on duty at a checkpoint, the squad hears gunshots, after which a car speeds past filled with insurgents, one of whom fires an AK-47 at them. King's men jump into their Humvees and follow the insurgents, following them into an alley. When the soldiers get out of their vehicles, the Iraqis shoot at them from rooftops. As the firefight ensues, an RPG is discharged, destroying one of the humvees, while killing three soldiers inside and wounding Pvt.Rodriguez. When King enters a house to help injured squad member Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum
Channing Tatum
Channing Matthew Tatum is an American actor and film producer. He began his career as a fashion model and appearing in television commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew before turning to film roles...
), he discovers that he had accidentally killed several Iraqi civilians by throwing a grenade.
Upon returning to their Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
hometown, Brandon and longtime friend Steve Shriver are decorated with the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in a solemn ceremony. A U.S. Senator takes Brandon aside after the ceremony and offers to help Brandon in anyway he can. That night, Steve shows the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. He gets drunk and digs a foxhole in his front yard, and strikes his fiancee Michelle (Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish
Abbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
). When Brandon comes over to check on Steve, he is unable to get through to him. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Joseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor whose career as both a child and adult has included television series and theatrical films....
), a fellow squad member, drives over drunk after his wife has kicked him out.
The next day, Brandon suggests that they all go to the "ranch", a small forest cabin located outside of town. The men pass the time by drinking and watching Tommy shoot his wedding gifts, after their friend Shorty reads the cards. Upon hearing the commotion, a hungover Steve awakens and literally shoots the cards so that everyone will be quiet. The next day King, Tommy and Steve report to their military base. When Brandon arrives expecting to be discharged, he is unexpectedly ordered back to active duty in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, based on the military's controversial stop-loss policy
Stop-loss policy
Stop-loss is a term primarily used in the United States military. In the U.S. military, it is the involuntary extension of a service member's active duty service under the enlistment contract in order to retain them beyond their initial end of term of service date and up to their contractually...
. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL, becoming a deserter.
Michelle sympathizes with Brandon's refusal and offers to travel with Steve to Washington, D.C. to see the Senator who offered to help Brandon out earlier. During a multi-day drive to Washington, D.C., Brandon calls the Senator's office and is told that because he is now a fugitive, the Senator is not interested in seeing him. Brandon and Michelle also visit the family of Paul "Preacher" Colson, one of the three soldiers under Brandon's command killed in the alley ambush and encounter another AWOL soldier who recommends a lawyer to help arrange forged discharge documents and the establishment of a new identity in Canada. They also visit Rico Rodriguez, a soldier who was blinded
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, lost his right arm and leg, and burned in the face while saving Tommy from a rocket propelled grenade
Rocket propelled grenade
A rocket-propelled grenade is a shoulder-fired, anti-tank weapon system which fires rockets equipped with an explosive warhead. These warheads are affixed to a rocket motor and stabilized in flight with fins. Some types of RPG are reloadable while others are single-use. RPGs, with the exception of...
. After Michelle phones Steve to tell him of their exact location, he arrives in uniform to take Brandon back, and tells Michelle he has volunteered to return to Iraq. Brandon refuses to return and Michelle is furious with Steve for re-enlisting and ends their relationship. They finally make it to New York City and meet with the lawyer who gives Brandon forged papers which would allow him to flee to Canada in exchange for payment of $1000. After a depressed
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
Burgess commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, Brandon returns to visit Burgess's grave immediately after the funeral, only to end up in a dispute with Steve after his funeral.
Brandon, his mother and Michelle drive to the Mexican border, but Brandon ultimately decides not to abandon everything that he has ever known. While about to cross the border, he tells his mother and Michelle that if he goes to Mexico he'll never really be able to leave the War behind him. The final scene depicts a busload of soldiers, including Brandon and Steve, returning to war.
Cast
- Ryan PhillippeRyan PhillippeMatthew Ryan Phillippe , better known as Ryan Phillippe, is an American actor. After appearing on the soap opera One Life to Live, he came to fame in the late 1990s starring in a string of films, including I Know What You Did Last Summer, Cruel Intentions, and 54...
as SSG Brandon Leonard King - Abbie CornishAbbie CornishAbbie Cornish is an Australian actress. She is well known in Australia for a number of film and television roles, particularly her award-winning lead performance in 2004's Somersault, and internationally for her role as Fanny Brawne in Bright Star and her appearance as Sweet Pea in Sucker Punch.-...
as Michelle Overton - Joseph Gordon-LevittJoseph Gordon-LevittJoseph Leonard Gordon-Levitt is an American actor whose career as both a child and adult has included television series and theatrical films....
as PFC Tommy Burgess - Rob BrownRob Brown (actor)Rob Brown is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the films Finding Forrester , Coach Carter , Take the Lead , The Express , and currently stars in the HBO series Treme.-Personal life:...
as Isaac "Eyeball" Butler - Channing TatumChanning TatumChanning Matthew Tatum is an American actor and film producer. He began his career as a fashion model and appearing in television commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew before turning to film roles...
as SGT Steve Shriver - Victor RasukVictor RasukVictor Rasuk is an American actor.Rasuk was born in Harlem, New York to Dominican parents. He has one brother, Silvestre, with whom he starred in Raising Victor Vargas....
as PVT Rico Rodriguez - Terry Quay as Paul "Preacher" Colson
- Matthew Scott Wilcox as Harvey
- Connett Brewer as Curtis
- Timothy OlyphantTimothy OlyphantTimothy David Olyphant is an American actor whose notable roles in television drama series include Deadwood as Seth Bullock, Justified as Raylan Givens, The Office as Danny Cordray, and Damages as Wes Krulik...
as LTC Boot Miller - Josef SommerJosef SommerJosef Sommer is an American film actor.He was born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald, Germany and was raised in North Carolina, the son of Elisabeth and Clemons Sommer, a professor of art history at the University of North Carolina. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology...
as Senator Orton Worrell - Linda EmondLinda EmondLinda Emond is an American stage, film and television actress.-Training and career:Emond graduated with an MFA from the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Washington in Seattle...
as Ida King - Ciarán HindsCiarán HindsCiarán Hinds is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His television roles include...
as Roy King - Mamie GummerMamie GummerMary Willa "Mamie" Gummer is an American actress, and the daughter of actress Meryl Streep.-Early life:Mamie Gummer was born to actress Meryl Streep, and sculptor Don Gummer...
as Jeanie Burgess - Alex FrostAlex FrostAlex 'Frosty' Frost is an American actor.Frost was born in Portland, Oregon. His parents are Debbie and Jack, and he has an older brother named Chris. Frost is currently living in London....
as Shorty Shriver - Chandra Washington as Mrs. Shriver
- Cora Cardona as Theresa Ridriguez
- Steven StraitSteven StraitSteven Strait is an American actor, fashion model, and rock singer.-Early life and modeling:Strait was born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City, New York. He is of Dutch and Italian heritage. He attended Xavier High School and took classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting...
as Michael Colson
Production
Principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began in August 2006 in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
and various locations in Texas — Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, Lockhart
Lockhart, Texas
-External links:* *...
, San Antonio and Uhland
Uhland, Texas
Uhland is a city in Caldwell and Hays Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. The population was 386 at the 2000 census. Uhland is named after the german poet Ludwig Uhland.-Geography:Uhland is located at ....
. However, the film was not released until March 28, 2008.
Home release
The DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
was released on July 8, 2008. The DVD includes an audio commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
by director Kimberly Peirce and co-writer Mark Richard, 2 featurettes, and 11 deleted scene
Deleted scene
In Entertainment, especially the film and television industry, Deleted scenes are parts of a film removed or censored from or replaced by another scene in the final "cut", or version, of a film...
s.
Reception
The film received generally positive reviews from critics; as of August 2011, the review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 65% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 136 reviews, with the consensus "Stop-Loss is sincere and complex, and features strong performances, even if it tries to cover too much ground." Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported the film had an average score of 62 out of 100, based on 34 reviews.
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli is an American online film critic.-Personal life:Berardinelli was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and spent his early childhood in Morristown, New Jersey. At the age of nine years, he relocated to the township of Cherry Hill, New Jersey...
described the film as one in a line of "preachy movies about the war in Iraq" and described it as "simplistic and uninteresting", citing it as no more effective than movies by others (including Robert Redford
Robert Redford
Charles Robert Redford, Jr. , better known as Robert Redford, is an American actor, film director, producer, businessman, environmentalist, philanthropist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival. He has received two Oscars: one in 1981 for directing Ordinary People, and one for Lifetime...
, Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma
Brian Russell De Palma is an American film director and writer. In a career spanning over 40 years, he is probably best known for his suspense and crime thriller films, including such box office successes as the horror film Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Scarface, The Untouchables, and Mission:...
, Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood
Gavin Hood is a South African filmmaker, screenwriter, producer and actor, best known for writing and directing the Academy Award-winning Foreign Language Film Tsotsi...
, and Paul Haggis
Paul Haggis
Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, producer, and director. He spent his early career producing and directing various American and Canadian television network series.-Early life and education:...
) who preceded Kimberly Peirce in attempting to tell a story with the "basic premise" that "War is hell, the U.S. government is deceitful, and soldiers are being irrevocably damaged." Peter Travers noted in his review of the film that several Iraq War movies had failed the year before, ("Box-office casualties last year include Lions for Lambs
Lions for Lambs
Lions for Lambs is a 2007 American drama film about the connection between a platoon of United States soldiers in Afghanistan, a U.S. senator, a reporter, and a California college professor. It stars Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl Streep...
, Rendition
Rendition (film)
Rendition is a 2007 drama film directed by Gavin Hood and starring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, Jake Gyllenhaal and Omar Metwally. It centers on the controversial CIA practice of extraordinary rendition, and is based on the true story of Khalid El-Masri who was...
, Redacted
Redacted (film)
Redacted is a 2007 American war film written and directed by Brian De Palma. It is a fictional dramatization, loosely based on the 2006 Mahmudiyah killings in Mahmoudiyah, Iraq...
, Grace Is Gone
Grace Is Gone
Grace Is Gone is a 2007 drama film starring John Cusack as a father who does not want to tell his two daughters that their mother has died while serving in Iraq...
, and the unfairly scorned In the Valley of Elah
In the Valley of Elah
In the Valley of Elah is a 2007 film written and directed by Paul Haggis, starring Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, and Susan Sarandon. The film’s title refers to the Biblical valley where the battle between David and Goliath is said to have taken place....
") and felt that Stop Loss "touches greatness" despite what he called "a curse hanging over it" and "has the juice to break the jinx."
Box office performance
Despite favorable reviews, the film was a box office bombBox office bomb
The phrase box office bomb refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio. This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.A film's financial...
. In its opening weekend, it grossed a mere $4.5 million in 1,291 theaters in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, ranking #8 at the box office. As of June 17, 2008, it has grossed a total of $10.9 million in the U.S. and Canada and over $16,000 in other territories. The film had an estimated budget of $25 million and only grossed $11 million worldwide, less than half of its budget.