Stop-Loss comes armed with a strong young cast and an understandable sense of outrage (the movie’s title refers to the military practice of redeploying soldiers after their contracts have expired), yet director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry) fails to rouse. Ryan Phillippe stars as Brandon King, a decorated soldier who has returned home to Texas with a handful of army buddies. Slipping back into society proves to be more difficult than expected, though, as guilt, despair and all manner of post-traumatic stress sets in. Then, just when Brandon’s distraught buddies need him most, he’s called in and told to report back to Iraq. Phillippe, Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt each gets his own, predetermined Hulk moment, in which the weight of warfare causes him to violently snap. The stars are up to the angst – Gordon-Levitt strikes the most authentic notes – but the movie gives them no freedom with which to communicate it. They’re hitting breakdown beats.
