The Justice

Media Credit: Frank Masi

It's only taken the film industry five years to supply a formula for how to handle the war in Iraq: venerated directors (Brian De Palma, Paul Haggis) guide reliable talents (Robert Redford, Charlize Theron) through moving and intelligent narratives, which invariably garner critical applause and audience indifference.

Stop-Loss, opening Friday, has a more complicated pedigree. The same year that its director, Kim Peirce, debuted to critical acclaim with Boys Don't Cry, stars Ryan Phillippe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt captured the affections of a less discriminating audience in fluffy, teen-targeted Cruel Intentions and 10 Things I Hate About You, respectively.

That was 1999. While Peirce has not released a film since, Phillippe and Gordon-Levitt have spent the intervening time making inroads toward artistic credibility. Where extensive credentials have failed to attract audiences, the combination of three wild-card résumés may generate enough curiosity to end Hollywood's losing streak.

Despite its political lightning rod of a title, Stop-Loss purports to take a personal look at the experience of soldiers returning from Iraq, or as Gordon-Levitt puts it, "the human beings that are in the midst of this, as opposed to the system and the money and the oil and all the other things that we hear about day after day."

Gordon-Levitt and Phillippe conducted conference call interviews with student journalists from around the United States to promote their film.

Phillippe, who appeared in the 2006 World War II film Flags of Our Fathers, says, "In terms of putting your life on the line ... or seeing your friends die in your arms and right next you, I think that's the absolute horror of war, and I don't think that that changes, no matter the theater or the place in history."

Still, Stop-Loss and other films of its genre lack both the moral clarity inherent to World War II blockbusters and the hindsight that most Vietnam War films bore. Without these factors to generate appeal, the film's makers are relying on a strategy of neutrality that they hope at least won't keep people away.

"I think this film doesn't push anyone in any specific direction," says Phillippe. "It doesn't preach to you, but it is in my view kind of pro-military. ... I think it pays a respect to the men and women who serve."

The film is also supposed to bring "a different take and a different edge, a younger point of view" toward the war in Iraq, according to Phillippe, 33. He asked interviewers to address him by his first name "because it makes me feel, like, old" otherwise. (Later, though, he mentioned, "I don't even own a pair of blue jeans.")

Continued...

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