But whatever you think about the Iraq war and the people who are fighting in it, you'll be shaken up and moved by Stop-Loss.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2008

Stop Loss takes some time out from the argument over the validity of the war to ask a question closer to home - whether the emotional battlefield America subjects its young soldiers to is actually worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2008

It's the film equivalent of a weary shrug - capturing the national mood at a moment when we'd all prefer some mood enhancers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/6 | Apr 25, 2008

Strong performances from the young cast make a compelling case that the US govt is failing its soldiers, but the film's a little too much of a blunt instrument.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2008

Stop-Loss misses emotional beats and hammers home its frustration; yet in a week where we've lost our 4,000th soldier, its impatience is a virtue.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 31, 2008

Stop-Loss is not a great movie, but it's forceful, effective, and alive, with the raw, mixed-up emotions produced by an endless war -- a time when the patriotism of military families is in danger of being exploited beyond endurance.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2008

The power of Stop-Loss -- and this is no dumb joke -- is that it shows its hero between Iraq and a hard place.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2008

[A] very worthy film.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2008

The film manages to walk a line that is not antiwar in the main, but is distinctly pro-soldier, and thus takes pains to speak to the plight of the American serviceperson.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 28, 2008

Swamped by clichés, continuity problems, stock characters and very good intentions.

Full Review | Mar 28, 2008

Stop-Loss can't quite decide whether to focus on making a powerful statement on a controversial and unfamiliar military policy or on a more predictable drama about the traumatic effect of war on young people's lives.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 28, 2008

The movie is a gripping but very limited view of their lives.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 28, 2008

As a nation, we owe them more than they owe us -- as this painfully necessary and heartfelt movie makes abundantly clear.

Full Review | Mar 28, 2008

Though it's no Boys Don't Cry, there's something about Stop-Loss that haunts you: Peirce has an uncanny way of catching the fierce light in her actors' eyes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 28, 2008

Clearly, Peirce's motives are pure. She's not using the 'stop-loss' issue as a wedge to make the government or the administration look bad. She's using it to dramatize an injustice and to advocate on behalf of the soldiers.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 28, 2008

While it would be premature to decorate it as the Best Years of Our Lives or Coming Home of the Surge, Stop-Loss carries the emotional force and propulsive drama of the quintessential soldier's story.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 28, 2008

After five years of news footage and documentaries coming from the war in Iraq, Stop-Loss is as phony as a re-enactment with finger pup pets.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Mar 28, 2008

Viewers of any age are bound to be moved by [director Peirce's] primary theme: that there is no easy cure for these damaged young veterans, whether they return to war or fight their demons at home.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 28, 2008

Stop-Loss is a film that does it right.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 28, 2008

It's more a sweaty assemblage of dramatic high-points than a coherent, persuasive story of wounded warriors trying to make it.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 28, 2008