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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:21
Rotten:11
Average Rating:6.3/10
Consensus: Stop-Loss is sincere and complex, and features strong performances, even if it tries to cover too much ground.
Theatrical Release:Mar 28, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $10,796,776
Synopsis: Director Kimberly Peirce (BOYS DON'T CRY) tackles another controversial topic with STOP-LOSS, the story of a U.S. soldier forced back into battle. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe) has just returned to... [More]
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Director: Kimberly Peirce
Stop-Loss is not a great movie, but it’s forceful, effective, and alive, with the raw, mixed-up emotions produced by an endless war -- a time when the patriotism of military families is in danger of being exploited beyond endurance.
Top CriticThe power of Stop-Loss -- and this is no dumb joke -- is that it shows its hero between Iraq and a hard place.
Top Critic[A] very worthy film.
Top CriticSwamped by clichés, continuity problems, stock characters and very good intentions.
Top CriticStop-Loss can't quite decide whether to focus on making a powerful statement on a controversial and unfamiliar military policy or on a more predictable drama about the traumatic effect of war on young people's lives.
Top CriticThe movie is a gripping but very limited view of their lives.
Top CriticAs a nation, we owe them more than they owe us -- as this painfully necessary and heartfelt movie makes abundantly clear.
Top CriticClearly, Peirce's motives are pure. She's not using the 'stop-loss' issue as a wedge to make the government or the administration look bad. She's using it to dramatize an injustice and to advocate on behalf of the soldiers.
Top CriticWhile it would be premature to decorate it as the Best Years of Our Lives or Coming Home of the Surge, Stop-Loss carries the emotional force and propulsive drama of the quintessential soldier's story.
Top CriticThere are good and confident choices here, particularly in the direction, and the way it integrates the soldiers' own war movies.
Top CriticAfter five years of news footage and documentaries coming from the war in Iraq, Stop-Loss is as phony as a re-enactment with finger pup pets.
Top CriticViewers of any age are bound to be moved by [director Peirce's] primary theme: that there is no easy cure for these damaged young veterans, whether they return to war or fight their demons at home.
Top CriticThe story steers away from clichés and political polemics, maintaining a tone of unflinching emotional realism.
Top CriticStop-Loss is a film that does it right.
Top CriticIt's more a sweaty assemblage of dramatic high-points than a coherent, persuasive story of wounded warriors trying to make it.
Top CriticWriter/director Kimberly Peirce has clearly done her homework. What she hasn't done, at least not here, is develop any strong point of view about the war.
Top CriticThere's a keen and ugly sense of anguish to Stop-Loss, a caged sense of powerlessness beyond political outrage that makes this film far and away the most effective effort yet at capturing the frustration of the war in Iraq.
Top CriticAnchored by deft performances from a sturdy ensemble, Stop-Loss provides proof of Peirce's sensitivity with actors as well as her interest in stories of American folk who don't often get the close-ups they should.
Top CriticStop-Loss tries to be about so many things that it addresses none of them adequately.
Top CriticThough its intentions are noble, it's hampered by a stock romantic subplot, a familiar structure, and a lack of symmetry.
Top Critic
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