Plot
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Brandon King's squad is operating in Tikrit during the Iraq War and has 28 days before their return to the United States. A car filled with insurgents races through their checkpoint, and when they are fired on, King's men give chase in their Humvees. The insurgents ambush them in an alley and a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) destroys one of the Humvees and kills two soldiers. A second RPG round destroys an Iraqi vehicle, and PFC Tommy Burgess is saved from serious injury when Private Rico Rodriguez dives on him and is severely wounded in the process. Paul "Preacher" Colston, Tommy's close friend, is killed by a shot through the neck and jaw in front of Tommy. Staff Sergeant King is shocked when he enter a house to help his old friend Sergeant Steve Shriver and discovers he's accidentally killed several Iraqi civilians after killing an insurgent with a grenade.
Back home in Brazos, Texas, Brandon and Steve receive the Bronze Star and Purple Heart in a solemn ceremony. A U.S. Senator takes Brandon aside with offers of assistance adjusting to civilian life. Steve's post-traumatic stress disorder manifests when he gets drunk, digs a foxhole in his front yard, and strikes his fiancée Michelle in the face. Brandon checks on Steve but can't get through to him. Tommy drives over drunk after his wife has kicked him out.
The trio travel together to a cabin outside of town to decompress, and pass time by drinking and watching Tommy shoot his wedding gifts. Steve shoots the wedding cards their friend Shorty has been reading aloud. Expecting their discharges to be finalized, Brandon, Tommy and Steve report to their military base and learn Brandon has been ordered back to active duty in Iraq under the military's controversial stop-loss policy requiring returned soldiers to return to the war. He refuses to comply and goes AWOL.
Michelle, sympathetic to Brandon's refusal, offers to travel with him to Washington, D.C. to take up the Senator on his offer of assistance. During the long trip, Brandon is told by the Senator's office that the he won't meet with a fugitive. The pair visit the family of Paul "Preacher" Colson, one of the three soldiers killed during the ambush, and encounter another AWOL soldier who recommends a lawyer who can provide forged discharge documents, with which to create a new identity in Canada. They also visit Rico Rodriguez, the soldier who saved Tommy from the RPG, who is now blinded, missing his right arm and leg, and suffering sustained facial burns. Steve arrives in uniform to take Brandon back at Michelle's urging, and admits to her he has volunteered to return to Iraq. Brandon refuses to go and Michelle, furious Steve re-enlisted, ends their relationship. Brandon and Michelle meet the lawyer in New York to obtain forged papers and a passport.
Tommy, depressed after his discharge, commits suicide. Brandon returns to visit Tommy's grave and has a physical confrontation with Steve at the cemetery. After driving to the Mexican border together, Brandon tells his mother and Michelle that he doesn't want to abandon everything he's ever known and that going to Mexico will ensure he can never leave the war behind him.
The film ends with a shot of a busload of soldiers, including Brandon and Steve, returning to the war.
Reception
Critical response
Rotten Tomatoes reports a 64% approval rating, based on 143 reviews, with an average rating of 6.27/10 and the consensus: "Stop-Loss is sincere and complex, and features strong performances, even if it tries to cover too much ground." [5] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 61 out of 100, based on 35 reviews. [1] The film was one of a string of films about the Iraq War released in the 2006-2009 period with titles such as; Home of the Brave by Irwin Winkler, Rendition by Gavin Hood, Redacted by Brian De Palma, In the Valley of Elah by Paul Haggis and The Messenger by Oren Moverman, all of which fared poorly at the box office and all of which, besides In the Valley of Elah and The Messenger, received middling critical reviews. [6] [7] James Berardinelli described the film as "preachy, simplistic and uninteresting", and cited it as no more effective than the other recent Iraq war films 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." [8] Peter Travers felt that Stop Loss "touches greatness" despite what he called "a curse hanging over it", and "has the juice to break the jinx." [6]
Box office
The film was a box office bomb. 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. [9] [10] 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. [11] The film had an estimated budget of $25 million and only grossed $11 million worldwide, less than half of its budget. [12]
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