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Stop-Loss

Just when you thought the situation in Iraq couldn’t get any more messed up, MTV Films has to go interjecting their detached take on things, with a movie starring Ryan Phillippe as an army soldier who’s forced into a second tour of duty. And speaking of forced, Phillippe’s Texan drawl, and the clichéd use of a Slipknot, Disturbed, Korn or whoever song to go along with the stylized, Army commercialesque footage of the fighting in the Middle East, make this movie like Fahrenheit 9/11 remade into a music video. A boring one.

I know what they’re trying to do here. I know. Creating a Deer Hunter for this generation. Make a movie that captures all of the angst, anxiety, frustration, anger and general unpopularity of the Iraq war. Show the soldiers come back to The World unable to cope, despite warm welcomes and open arms. Stop-Loss looks like it revolves around a small group of friends. Phillippe’s character seems to be refusing to go back out of principle or something. Another is a Young Republican with a girl’s name (the actor at least) who’d gladly take a Louisville Slugger in the ass for this country and another one who looks like he’s going to snap and blow his brains out in that shitty hotel right off the 44.

Stop-Loss looks like the kind of movie that might actually be good, but in that annoying, “important” way. I’m not interested and I don’t care. It could be Varsity Blues for all I know. But again, I don’t care. I don’t like being guilted into seeing movies either, and that’s what I feel like is going on here. So screw you, Ryan Phillippe, and your lantern-chinned ex-wife and your socially conscious movies. Jerks.

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