"This is kind of an important movie"
Stop-Loss is a pretty serious movie. For real, for an MTV generated feature it tackles a tough topic and keeps on point for most if not all of the feature. It's good too. I enjoyed the story, didn't know what was going to happen in the end and was surprised with how it turned out. Good stuff.
The deal is that American GIs because of the lack of new enlistees are being held over after the length of their tour. Like you think that you get to go home that day but NOPE. You gotta serve another five and that's just the way it is because you signed up for the stupid job in the first place. Wack. Sucks ass man. Total ass suck. It's a terrible thing to have happen to you on your one go around here on good old Earth. Awful. I can't stress enough how much I think that it sucks.
Ryan Phillippe plays a soldier dude, like a leader of a little group of soldiers. Squad commander? I don't know, anyway he leads his men into an ambush and while trying to get his dudes out a bunch of bad stuff happens. Some of his men get killed, one dude gets left horribly burnt and legless. Civilians get killed. Children get killed. It's terrible and these happenings haunt poor Phillippe and his remaining men. All of whom are from the same town and all hang out together while on leave. Is that how it works? I guess it would. They were prolly all in the Guard and got called in. Sucks.
Ryan thinks that he's getting out. His 5 year tour is over. He wants to get back to his cool life of running around and shooting snakes and whatever in his beloved state of Texas. He loves him some Texas. Like a lot.Thing is that when he goes to get his discharge papers instead he's given orders to report back to IRAQ or wherever ASAP. Man, that must just about make your heart break huh? I mean you survived this far only to be told that you have to go back and do it all over again. The horror.
Of course he doesn't take it well and pretty much tells his commander where he can go and stick those orders cause he's fixin' to go AWOL over this shit. They call it laying low. On the D-L.
Also all around him his men falling apart as well. They are total wrecks. Getting back to civilian life isn't as easy as they thought that it would be. Dudes dig trenches in their front yards, drink like crazy and smack their wives around just on GP.
War sucks. I think that we all know that right? Well I think that we all also know that this war sucks worse then most of the other ones cause it's pretty much pointless right? I'm not trying to start anything here. I just really feel for these people who signed up for something that turned out to be not what they thought that it'd be all together and then on top of that they get Shangheid into repeat service for like all eternity. What a sham.
Stop-Loss does a good job of bringing attention to a very real, very bad situation. It's like that song Iron Man by Black Sabbath. You can't just turn your back on and mistreat the people who volunteer to go and do the fighting. Regardless of the war and regardless of whether it's a just conflict or not. It's not like the troopers pick their fight. They seem mostly to be dudes without a lot of job prospects or education to fall back on if this army thing doesn't work out. They are just pawns in this whole deal. Dudes like you or me. Just different.
Good movie. Go see it or don't just be aware of these poor kids unable to get free of Uncle Sam's long arm. It's criminal what happens to these guys and the penalties for those who try and fight back are worse. They lose everything. It's either Jail or The Middle East. What's up with that? You volunteer to help out over there and wind up disgraced and imprisoned cause you didn't want to stay after your agreed upon time is up. Man, the government is a bunch of dicks. They are not on your side.
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