For five years we have sat back and watched, as atrocity upon atrocity was committed in our name. Well, no more. We demand the cessation of work on, and complete withdrawal of anti-Gulf War films.
As definite evidence that conscience makes cowards, not to mention twits of us all, Kimberly Peirce, the capable filmmaker behind Boys Don’t Cry, chips in her two cents to spectacularly pointless effect. Stop-Loss, as the titles suggests, deals with the practise of signing up returning soldiers for an extra stint in the Persian Gulf without their consent. Ryan Phillippe, our young hero, survives a deadly attack in Eye-Rack, and returns to his shit-kicking Texan hometown only to learn he has been signed up for a further involuntary tour of duty. He pouts a bit, observes his hunky comrades enacting set pieces from “Post-traumatic stress disorder For Dummies” and takes off with Abbie Cornish for the first of many non-sequiturs.
Everything about Stop-Loss feels bogus. The dreamboat army, featuring Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, suggests that Calvin Klein is now Commander-In-Chief. Abbie Cornish’s Texan drawl wavers between Southern Belle and Northern Territories Sheila, frequently within the same syllable. The big violins patronisingly zoom all the way to eleven for the Big Emotional Moments. The sloppy, close-up filmmaking seems better suited to an early television play for the near-sighted. As for the visit to the mangled soldiers’ hospital, it’s the cheapest shot since Patch Adams wheeled out all those little bald children from the cancer wards.
The film’s spineless politicking is more disconcerting still. Ms. Peirce’s Hate The War, Support Our Troops ambiguity is precisely the kind of doublethink that has Iraq in its current predicament.
Conventional wisdom says we’re not ready for Eye-Rack at the movies but the truth is, films like this one are arriving way too late in the day to have any real relevance or impact. Happily, dwindling box office tallies suggest that these Axis Of Evil spectaculars are no longer even preaching to the converted. Fine. Market forces got us into this mess and they can bloody well get us out of it.